Foundry Company TowerJazz and Crocus Advance on MRAM

TowerJazz, a foundry company, and Crocus Technology, provider of magnetically enhanced semiconductors, announced a breakthrough in a magnetic technology that has been co-developed with Crocus.

The technology now offers SRAM performance in terms of speed and power with Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) capabilities. This MRAM solution has demonstrated performance and more than two billion cycles of program/erase were demonstrated on a 4M bit NVM product. The first market to be addressed is Battery Backed SRAM (BB-SRAM). Crocus’ product provides the best characteristics of current BB-SRAM offerings – fast access times, low power and unlimited write cycles without the need for cost, recharging and long-term disposal of a Lithium battery.

According to a 2013 Emerging Non-Volatile Memories report from Yole Développement, higher-density NVM chips will spawn many new applications and increase the business ten-fold in just five years. According to the report, the sizable growth in emerging NVM will be due to increased use in various markets including: industrial and transportation, enterprise storage, smart card, mobiles phones and mass storage.

Crocus has developed a robust, reliable and scalable MRAM process. Its Magnetic Logic Unit (MLU) architecture is based on its patented self-reference Thermally Assisted Switching (TAS) technology which enables a number of previously unachievable breakthroughs in magnetic memory implementation. These include: robust secure embedded memory, high-temperature NVM operation (e.g., >200° C), order-of-magnitude higher density hardware-based table searches (e.g., content addressable memory), high density multi-bit storage, and scaling to sub-20nm manufacturing.

"Crocus and TowerJazz have collaborated for many years to develop this disruptive technology to address the growing and vast number of markets which can be served by emerging NVM such as cache memory for enterprise storage, MCUs for smart cards, industrial and automotive applications, mobile phones and more," said Bertrand F. Cambou, executive chairman, Crocus. "TowerJazz is a known leader in NVM foundry solutions and has been the ideal partner to quickly bring leading edge commercial chip products to an eager and growing marketplace. Our collaboration will enable us to achieve high volume business for both companies with a long life on TowerJazz’s platform."

"We are excited to bring this technology to volume production in Q4 this year and in so doing to be the first foundry with MRAM capability. At two billionprogram/erase cycles with one billion read at less than 35nsec on a 4Mb product, this technology outperforms any other available MRAM solution in the market," said Russell Ellwanger, CEO, TowerJazz. "We have a long history and much expertise with NVM at TowerJazz having co-developed the initial Saifun NROM technology as well as organically holding strong NVM IP blocks such as Y-flash, a zero mask adder mid-size NVM. The Y-Flash is a powerful enabler that is in volume production with many of our customers and has been licensed to the largest in our industry. With this background, our team is qualified and realistic to state that the MRAM activity and the achievements with Bertrand and his Crocus team are revolutionary and offer innovative solutions to a number of our respective customers."

Crocus’ proprietary MRAM technology solves all the known problems encountered in earlier MRAM developments. The company’s technology has demonstrated its stability, reliability, data retention, endurance, and scalability, while exhibiting high speed, low power dissipation, and resistance to external perturbation.

About Magnetic Random Access Memory
MRAM’s unique characteristics make it suitable to a variety of telecommunication, networking, computing and handheld applications currently using SRAM and/or flash memory technology. It is a new memory technology providing non-volatility, unlimited-write-endurance, high-density, and symmetrical high-speed read & write. It is particularly suited to applications requiring high reliability and high performance, and has the potential of becoming the universal embedded memory technology for systems-on-chip devices.

About TowerJazz
Tower Semiconductor Ltd., its wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary Jazz Semiconductor Ltd., and its wholly-owned Japanese subsidiary TowerJazz Japan, Ltd., operate collectively under the brand name TowerJazz, a global specialty foundry firm. It manufactures ICs, offering a range of customizable process technologies including: SiGe, BiCMOS, Mixed-Signal/CMOS, RFCMOS, CMOS Image Sensor, Power Management (BCD), and MEMS capabilities. It also provides a design enablement platform that enables a quick and accurate design cycle. In addition, TowerJazz provides (TOPS) Technology Optimization Process Services to IDMs and fabless companies that need to expand capacity. TowerJazz offers multi-fab sourcing with two manufacturing facilities in Israel, one in the U.S., and one in Japan.