NEC Develops World's Fastest MRAM

Gary writes to tell us that NEC has developed a new SRAM compatible MRAM. The new memory module is capable of speeds up to 250MHz, the world's fastest to date. "MRAM are expected to generate new value and applications for future electronic devices thanks to their nonvolatility, unlimited write endurance, high speed operation, and ability to cut memory power dissipation in half. For example, these features could enable instant start up of PCs and prevent drive recorders from losing data after a sudden break in power in the future. As substitutes for system LSI-embedded SRAM, MRAM can provide even more value as they are expected to enable extremely low power dissipation of system LSIs because they can sleep when they are not in use and wake up instantly."

Awesome!

[IdeaMan]

Now all they need now is faster WOM [national.com]

Actually I did play with the serial MRAM's back when I was an embedded systems engineer, they were pretty cool. As I recall they didn't have the write cycle count issues that EEPROMs had and had way faster write cycle times.

MRAM Solid State Hard Drives

[Nonillion]

Cool, this sounds like the ticket to fast Solid State hard drives. I know there are some flash drives being produced, but the limited read/write cycle is what has kept me from trying one. I would most certainly like to have a drive where slew rate and rotational latency are non-existent.

Could the reverse be done?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I always wondered why more people didn't use battery-backed RAM with some slower, more persistent storage to dump it to when you lose power.

So really, the question is, which is cheaper: a gig of MRAM, or a gig of battery-backed RAM with a gig of flash or hard disk to dump to?

Not a replacement for SRAM... yet

[Kazymyr]

I have some MRAM samples waiting to be tested in my drawer (4Mb chips from Freescale). They look good as replacement for flash chips rather that SRAM, because of better reliability and lower power consumption, however the technology is quite young and hasn't reached yet the packing density of flash, or the speed of SRAM. Lots of potential though.

Re:MRAM Solid State Hard Drives

[Alsee]

Cool, this sounds like the ticket to fast Solid State hard drives.

The automobile is the ticket to moving horses around faster.

Or you can just have a car and skip the horse altogether.
And have 200 Gig of RAM and skip the Solid State drive altogether.

Whenever you buy new software you just put the software in the drive, load the software into your 200 Gig RAM, then you can just hit the power switch on the computer. Then whenever you want you just tap the power switch for an instant power-on and ALL of your software and ALL of your photos and ALL of your music and everything else, it's all already live in your 200 Gigs of RAM.

Yeah you'd want to change some aspects of the operating system to adapt to this new paradigm, in some ways you want to add new "hard drive style" management features in how you handle RAM, but you could throw the entire buggy-whip notion of a hard drive right out the window.

The only issue here is whether this is too expensive to have 100Gig+ bulk memory... but if that's the case then it would be too expensive for a "Solid State Hard Drive" anyway.

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Re:MRAM Solid State Hard Drives

[Alsee]

Your conclusion paints a false dichotomy, with the unstated assumption being that any form of SSD technology

No, I did state "this", meaning *this* technology.
If you have nonvolatile memory that is as fast as system RAM, then you may as well use it as system RAM.

A paradigm shift. When RAM is nonvolatile, it possesses all the capabilities of a drive. When a drive has the speed of RAM, it possesses all the capabilities of RAM. With this technology the capabilities RAM and drive are unified. The very concept and implementation of RAM and drive can be unified.

There is no reason to make an SSD out of this stuff, other than laziness. And even if you are lazy, you still don't make an SSD out of it... you still put the memory in the system and tag it as a RAM drive.

A rather amusing analogy, putting it all on the system and using it as a RAM drive is like strapping an internal-combustion-engine and four wheels on a horse. An engine and four wheels on a house can (sorta) work as well and as fast as a car, but it's old paradigm to build around the horse. You really want to design the horse out of it.

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