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To: SBHX who wrote (42041)	5/11/2000 1:31:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

Motorola believes MRAM could replace nearly all memory technologies Semiconductor Business News (05/10/00, 03:07:45 PM EDT) TEMPE, Ariz. -- Semiconductor researchers at Motorola Inc. here today announced working prototypes of high-speed, 3-volt magnetoresistive RAMs--a significant milestone in the company's efforts to create a replacement for most of today's semiconductor memory technologies. Researchers in Motorola Labs said 3-V MRAM test chips now have demonstrated 15-nanosecond assess times. These prototypes also have performed several billion read and write cycles, suggesting the potential for unlimited endurance, according to the company. Last February, Motorola researchers disclosed their development of MRAM technology during the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector said the technology promises to become a "universal memory," allowing the integration of multiple memory options within one chip for wireless systems. This capability would reduce cost, cut power consumption and improve the speed of those ICs, said the company. "We've demonstrated full integration of MTJ with standard low cost CMOS circuitry and have been able to achieve exciting performance characteristics," said Herb Goronkin, vice president and director of the Physical Research Laboratories unit of Motorola Labs. "In addition, we have made significant progress toward increasing the signal from an MTJ cell and reducing the resistance of MTJ-based material. The current resistance levels are ideal for our memory architecture. We have been able to achieve these parameters uniformly across 150-mm wafers." In recent months, Motorola researchers have apparently made significant progress in improving the performance of the MRAM technology. At ISSCC in February, researchers said they had made MRAM test chips with access times of 24 ns and cycle times of 34 ns. During April's IEEE International Magnetic Conference, Motorola scientists reported MRAM address access times of 14 ns and cycle times of 24 ns using devices fabricated with 0.6-micron device feature sizes. Motorola said the MRAM cell is based on a single transistor and magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) structure. The MTJ structure is integrated on top of the transistor to achieve a small cell size, which makes the memory cost competitive with other technologies, according to the company. Motorola believes the MRAM could eventually replace flash memories, DRAM and all but the fastest SRAMs. The next milestone in the MRAM project will be to develop a higher density memory. Products incorporating MRAM technology are expected to be in production within a few years, according to Motorola. "The 'smart' phones of tomorrow will require increased memory. This means that local, on-chip memories capable of communicating with multiple processor configurations will be needed to provide better performance and lower power," predicted Peter Gill, vice president and director of the Materials & Structures Laboratories at Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector. "In addition, MRAM has no known wear-out mechanism, is non-volatile and is expected to meet commercial and industrial temperature requirements," Gill said. "To the consumer, this means exciting new possibilities such as real-time wireless video." Motorola said it intends to use the MRAM as an embedded function system-on-chip ICs. The company believes the technology will help increase speeds and lower power consumption in a range of SoC chips for information appliances, portable computers, consumer electronics, and wireless devices. Embedded MRAM could remove performance bottlenecks on chips by placing memory directly on top of microprocessor functions, suggested Motorola.