Freescale Semiconductor Inc., a spin-off of Motorola Inc., recently announced the commercial availability of a 4-megabit magnetoresistive random-access memory, or MRAM. The announcement came almost two years from the initial announcement that the company was building inventory at an Arizona factory.

At only a 1.26 square micron cell size in a 0.18-micron process, this tiny product will satisfy customers and industries in a big way. Consider today’s technology-savvy desires for “smaller, faster, and durable,” and MRAM stands competitively in the memory market.

Flash memory chips, while common in mp3 players, digital cameras, and cell phones, adequately retain information, but become slower and degrade with time. MRAM products, however, are fast, processing data at 35-ns. Saied Tehrani, director of the MRAM program, also noted that reliability tests have also demonstrated the lack of wear-out problems, which limit the number of write cycles with flash memories.

This “unlimited durability” will appeal to many portable electronic owners.   Furthermore, MRAM could also replace the RAM found in PCs, enabling systems to boot up immediately, as data does not have to be reloaded into the memory chips.

Analyst Will Strauss from research firm, Forward Concepts, stated, “This is the most significant memory introduction in this decade. This is radically new technology. People have been dabbling in this for years, but nobody has been able to make it in volume.” 

Though Freescale has declined to name its first customers, markets where durability is a major factor, such as the automotive industry, will most likely be first in line. According to Saied Tehrani- who directs Freescale’s MRAM program- the chip would also work well with data-logging devices, such as airline black boxes.