The future of MRAM is bright: Q&A with Everspin

“A key feature of this is the extended temperature range, we’re now able to offer from minus 40 degrees up to a high of 125 degrees [Celsius],” explained Joe O’Hare, Director of Marketing, Everspin Technologies. “It’s highly valued in space exploration and LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite applications.”

An explosion in the number of LEO satellites in recent years as companies look to harness satellite communications to provide connectivity where terrestrial infrastructure fails has partly contributed to this growth in demand for MRAM, and provides a significant opportunity for Everspin. Where LEO was perhaps regarded as a niche application, it has now become mainstream.

“With the advent of LEO, these are replaceable modules … they’re going to have to replace what they launch every few years,” said O’Hare. “So it’s a renewable business and we think that is going to be good for us as a supplier to it.”

Importantly, O’Hare noted: “We’re doing this on a commercial basis and not as a specially processed product, so it’s in an affordable range for these folks [working in satellite and defence] that is making it very attractive.”

Other applications which Everspin’s MRAM is used in, include Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), casino gaming, and medical devices.

“Casino gaming is a highly-regulated business, so they are obliged to record and report specific transactions, especially winning combinations,” explained O’Hare. “They want to make sure, number one, that they never lose that data so they can have it for reporting. But it also becomes a part of their control system too, that they have this ability to record data rapidly, as often as they want, and without fear of losing the data.” 

Partnering with Lattice Semiconductor

Another exciting new announcement for Everspin has been its partnership with Lattice Semiconductor, a manufacturer of FGPAs, which oversees its MRAM solutions being available in Lattice’s design environment, so developers can see how they can integrate the memory.

This announcement comes after Everspin observed that its customers were using MRAM as a companion device to FPGAs. This is thanks to the high-performance capabilities that MRAM can offer FPGAs which don’t store customer code, and consequently have to reload the code back and boot.

“Typically they use NOR flash but in some of the higher reliability systems, they’re starting to dopt MRAM, and that’s because of the 64 megabit and 128 megabit densities that we’re getting to,” explained O’Hare.

This is part of a wider shift from customers moving from using NOR Flash to MRAM. This is due to a number of reasons, high performance being one of them; it also has infinite writing cycles where Flash is typically confined to 100,000 and can do this faster, and it is radiation tolerant, which is especially important for mission-critical industries.

Exploring MRAM in non-typical memory applications

Going forward, Everspin is focusing on pursuing two areas with MRAM as a foundation: the first being standalone memory chip technology, where it will sell memory components with different performance characteristics under their UNISYS brand.

“The first [chip] we’re going to do is going to look a lot like a NOR Flash device, but with higher capacity and much higher performance.”

The second is looking at MRAM in non-typical memory applications. “You have to configure FPGAs every time you power up,” said O’Hare. “If there was a way where you loaded the configuration from the external memory into the FPGA so it could remember itself, then you wouldn’t have to reload it every time you powered up. Having MRAM as the configuration element within the FPGA fabric is what that enables.”

Finally, MRAM is being explored by the company for what it can offer the AI accelerator space, more specifically how its power-conscious design can benefit processing data on the Edge.

“This is a technology that’s still in the development stage for us, but we are talking to some of the AI accelerator companies about how they would use this together with their chips to provide more instant model updates,” O’Hare clarified.

In investigating how MRAM can bring value to non-traditional memory uses, touching upon its newest high-performance products and the recognition of companies working in aerospace and defence of the benefits of using MRAM, the future for this technology undoubtedly looks bright.