Avalanche Samples Spin Transfer Torque-MRAM Chips on 300mm Wafers 

Avalanche Technology, Inc., announced the availability of its Spin Transfer Torque Magnetic RAM (STT-MRAM) technology, the next generation high-speed non-volatile magnetic memory.

The company’s STT-MRAM memory is based on proprietary perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (pMTJ) cells manufactured on high volume, low cost, standard CMOS 300mm process. As such, company’s STT-MRAM is suited and commercially viable memory replacement for many embedded and/or stand-alone DRAM and SRAM applications, including storage, mobile, wearable devices, and networking equipment.

The STT-MRAM sample memory device is a 32/64Mb stand-alone discrete with an industry standard SPI interface built on a 55nm-node foundry process. Drop-in compatible with SPI interfaces, the STT-MRAM delivers the best combined attributes among existing memory technologies (DRAM, SRAM, Flash) with the added benefits of scalability beyond 10nm node, high performance with unlimited endurance and low power. In addition to its stand-alone products, Avalanche is also offering its STT-MRAM technology (AvRAM) under license as embedded memory for integrated SOC designs.

“STT-MRAM has enormous market opportunities due to its speed and endurance as a replacement for volatile memories such as SRAM and DRAM. Moving to a non-volatile memory architecture will make significant changes in computer architectures,” said Thomas Coughlin, president, Coughlin Associates, a storage consultancy. “Avalanche’s pMTJ STT-MRAM broadens the available sources for STT-MRAM and brings these products closer to availability.“

“While there are in-plane based MTJ MRAM technologies sampling today, further breakthrough is expected to broaden STT-MRAM to higher volume addressing more cost-sensitive applications,” said Petro Estakhri, founder, president and CEO, Avalanche. “Perpendicular-based MTJ along with high volume 300mm production are key aspects of commercializing this technology. From day one, our STT-MRAM was designed with pMTJ combined with low cost manufacturing to address this market demand.“

“We would like to congratulate Avalanche Technology for this achievement,” said Junro Sakai, president, Canon Anelva Corporation. “It’s been an honor to closely collaborate with Avalanche and support its efforts and we wish to keep this momentum going. This is undoubtedly very encouraging news for all of us in the industry.“

Perpendicular MTJ
The core technology of the company’s STT-MRAM is proprietary perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (pMTJ) cells. These pMTJ cells are comprised of a magnetic ‘pinned’ layer, an MgO barrier layer for high and low resistance generation, and another magnetic ‘storage’ layer. The magnetization orientation of the pinned layer is permanently fixed during operation, and that of the storage layer is not. Magnetization of the storage layer changes it perpendicular direction based on the direction of the electrical current being applied and flowing through the pMTJ cell.

Perpendicular MTJ requires less real estate than STT-MRAM implementations with current generation in-plane MTJ cell design. Avalanche has amassed an arsenal of patents in key areas such as pMTJ cell design, manufacturing, pMTJ operation, STT-MRAM circuit design and STT-MRAM integration at system level, which enables smaller cell size, faster R/W performance and scalability to future technology nodes, as well as system architecture and implementation.