Fujitsu mass-produces new memory NRAM performance 1000 times that of DRAM

Tencent Digital (Wen Xin) According to the report from Computerworld, Fujitsu Semiconductor has become the first manufacturer to announce mass production of a new type of memory chip whose performance is 1000 times that of DRAM but stores data like NAND flash memory.

This new type of non-volatile memory, called Nano-RAM (NRAM), was first announced last year and uses carbon nanotube technology.

Fujitsu Semiconductor plans to develop a custom embedded memory-class memory module with a DDR4 interface by the end of 2018 with the goal of creating a single NRAM product family. Separate memory modules will be sold through dealers.

According to Nantero, the company that invented NRAM, seven semi-conductor plants around the world had trial production of NRAM last year.

Fujitsu plans to initially produce NRAM using a 55-nanometer process, which allows the initial NRAM memory module to store only a few megabytes of data. According to Nantero chief executive Greg Schmergel, Fujitsu also plans to produce NRAM using a 40-nm process.

The initial NRAM product will be geared toward data centers and servers, but over time it may be used for consumer products and even for mobile devices. Shamoo said that since NRAM energy consumption is extremely low and no background data erasing operation is required, it may extend the standby time of mobile devices to several months.

Fujitsu did not indicate whether its initial NRAM products use DIMM designs, but Shamouge said that another manufacturing partner, "NRAM products will use DIMM design, and is compatible with DDR4."

Shamogu said: "We are still working with several other manufacturers. For example, one of them uses a 28-nanometer process to launch a separate memory product with a capacity of several gigabytes." Shamoo refers to the DIMM design. This manufacturer.

Computerworld said that at present, NRAM is produced using two-dimensional design, which means that the memory cells are horizontally arranged in a two-dimensional plane. However, like NAND flash, Nantero is developing a three-dimensional multi-layer architecture of NRAM that will greatly increase storage density.

Shamouge said, "We will use 3D design earlier than planned because customers demand higher storage density. We expect the storage density of each vendor's products will be different. Most manufacturers produce 4-8 layers of chips. We More layers can be added. Nanotube technology won't drag the density of storage."

Xia Gul said that the current NRAM production cost is about half of the DRAM, and as the storage density increases, the production cost will also decline - similar to the NAND chip industry.

Jim Handy, principal analyst of semiconductor market research firm Objective Analysis, told Computerworld in an e-mail, "My understanding is that Nantero plans to integrate MCUs (microcontrollers) and ASICs (application-specific integrations). The embedded memory method in the circuit) has introduced NRAM in the market. This is a good strategy because the flash memory technology lags behind the MCU and ASIC."

Handy said, "Alternative technologies such as NRAM are likely to achieve high sales. After that, it will challenge DRAM, but before the sales close to DRAM, NRAM costs cannot match DRAM."

According to Handy, if the DRAM market stops growing, NRAM will have great opportunities because its market is expected to grow at a lower price than DRAM can't.

Sharmocoo said that as NRAM storage capacity grows with storage density, and as production costs decline with scale, it will one day replace NAND flash memory. "We will strive to compete with DRAM in the coming years, and NRAM will not require NAND. Flash than cost."

One of the advantages of NRAM for traditional flash memory is its useful life. Flash memory can only maintain a limited number of program/erase cycles—usually 5000-8000 times before the memory begins to fail. Supports error correction codes, best NAND flash memory with wear leveling software, and a useful life of up to 100,000 program/erase cycles.

Carbon nanotubes are very strong - very high. In fact, carbon nanotubes are 50 times stronger than steel and only 50,000 times smaller than human hair. Due to the strength of carbon nanotubes, NRAM writes are much faster than NAND flash. According to Shamogu, the programming/erasing cycle of NRAM is almost limitless.

Shamogu said that Nantero's tests showed that NRAM can reach 10 times of 12 program/erase cycles and can read 10 times 15 times.

In 2014, a test conducted by a research team of the Central University of Japan showed that the NRAM can reach the 11th program/erase cycle of 10 times, ie, it can write more than 1 billion times. Shamogu said, "We expect its service life to be unlimited."

Although NRAM can replace NAND flash memory someday, Nantero and its manufacturing partners are committed to making it replace DRAM because of the cost. The NRAM production cost is about half of the conventional memory.

Another advantage of NRAM is that it uses a DDR4 interface, so its data transfer rate can be as high as 2400 Mbps, which is more than twice that of NAND flash memory. Shamogu said that, however, native read and write speeds of NRAM are several thousand times faster than NAND flash memory, and the bottleneck is the DDR4 specification.

Shamouge said, "The switching speed of carbon nanotubes is measured in picoseconds." A picosecond is equivalent to 1 trillionth of a second.

Since Nantero uses the DDR4 interface when designing NRAM, the speed will be limited by this bus interface. Therefore, the potential speed of NRAM may reach 1000 times that of DRAM.

Computerworld claims that another advantage of NRAM is its extreme high temperature resistance. NRAM can withstand high temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius. Nantero said that in an environment of 85 degrees Celsius, NRAM can operate normally for thousands of years and has been tested in a 300 degrees Celsius environment for 10 years. Nantero stated that NRAM did not lose one bit of data during the test.

How NRAM works

Carbon nanotubes are grown from catalyst particles (most commonly iron). Each NRAM "cell" or transistor consists of a carbon nanotube network and works in the same way as other non-volatile RAM technologies.

Carbon nanotubes that are not in contact with each other exhibit a high resistance state, representing a "closed" or "0" state; when the carbon nanotubes contact each other, they assume a low resistance state, representing an "on" or "1" state.

According to Handy, in terms of new memory, NRAM's competitors have many emerging technologies that will challenge NAND flash in terms of speed, endurance and capacity. For example, the shipment of ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) is quite high; IBM has developed track memory; Intel, IBM, and Numonyx have all begun to produce phase change memory; since the 1990s, magnetoresistive memory (MRAM) has been under development; HP Hynix is ​​developing ReRAM, also known as memristor; Infineon is developing CBRAM.

Another NRAM rival is 3D Xpoint memory, Intel and Micron will launch this product this year. Micron will sell 3D Xpoint memory under the QuantX trademark (Intel will be sold under the Octane trademark). QuantX's rival is NAND flash memory, because QuantX is a memory chip for mass storage devices, which has lower speed and lower production costs than DRAM. But it is much faster than NAND.

Shamogu said, "NRAM speed is comparable to DRAM, but its service life is much longer."

Handy said, "NRAM should be better than 3D Xpoint, which wears fast and writes much slower than read speed. If the cost can be reduced to a similar level as DRAM, NRAM can replace DRAM. Cost is a big problem, Because the price is close to DRAM, there is a need for high sales. This is a chicken or egg problem. Once the sales volume is high enough, the cost will drop. If the cost can be comparable to DRAM, the sales volume will be high."

Source: Computerworld

.wxdigi { padding:20px 0; border-top: 1px dotted DBDBDB; } .wxdigi dt { display:inline; float:center; margin-right:17px; } .wxdigi dd strong { display:inline-block; padding-top :0px; color:414141; font-size:14px; } .wxdigi dd { font-size:14px; color:606060; }