Micron and A*Star Data Storage Institute Renew Research Collaboration for Three Years

Micron Technology, Inc., and Singapore’s A*STAR Data Storage Institute (DSI) are extending their collaboration on the development of STT-MRAM, a alternative non-volatile memory technology, for another three years.

The two organisations first joined hands in 2011. The collaboration has brought together researchers from Micron and A*STAR DSI to co-develop high density STT-MRAM devices.

With its capabilities and know-how in STT-MRAM, A*STAR DSI has played a role in helping Micron establish a technology centre in Singapore. As part of the initial cooperation, DSI also provided the necessary expertise and innovation to achieve fabrication of STT-MRAM devices.

Building on their previous collaboration, the renewal of the research collaboration will focus on developing low-power consumption switching mechanisms, and improving the performance of STT-MRAM devices.

With the rising interest in STT-MRAM across different industries, the extension of the collaboration will bring the technology closer to commercial maturity.

Non-volatile memory is becoming important in the semiconductor memory market, playing a role in enabling mobile storage applications and SSDs. Low power consumption STT-MRAM technology has the potential to become a universal memory due to qualities such as high data retention and high speed to address the technology scaling roadmap challenges of volatile memory. It also has the ability to boost the performance of data centres and the cloud.

Pantelis Alexopoulos, executive director, DSI, said: “Over the first three years of our collaboration, DSI has played a direct role in co-innovating with Micron and has proven its relevance as a key centre for the development of STT-MRAM The renewal of the contract is a testimony to the hard work and the quality of both of our teams. We are proud to be a partner of Micron on their path towards the development of STT-MRAM.“

Tan Geok Leng, executive director, science and engineering research council, A*STAR, said: “In addition to STT MRAM’s emergence as a promising class of non-volatile memory, it has the potential to bring about a paradigm shift in computing architecture with significant performance improvement and energy savings when applied to storage solutions. This flagship collaboration with Micron augurs well for Singapore’s positioning to be a leader in advanced memory and storage technologies.“

Terence Gan, director electronics, Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) said: “This partnership between DSI and Micron will create new technologies and train talent in advanced storage technologies that will take our industry to new heights.”

“We look forward to continuing our partnership with DSI on STT-MRAM technology and exploring new device concepts and new materials that have the potential to enable advanced memory solutions for Micron in the future,” said Scott DeBoer, VP R&D, Micron.