Elektron Analog Keys Powered by Everspin MRAM

Everspin Technologies, Inc. and Elektron Music Machines disclosed how the 16Mb MR4A16BMA35 Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) offers musicians of Elektron’s Analog Keys 4 Voice Analog Synthesizer the ability to maximize audio production creativity.

Made for the stage, Analog Keys features 37 semi-weighted keys, four analog voices, over 4,000 sound slots, a powerful sequencer, and a fast digital control system.

Designed for applications requiring data reliability and speed, the 16Mb MR4A16BMA35 MRAM benefits system designs with fast non-volatile memory, symmetrical R/W performance, and unlimited endurance. These memory features enable Analog Keys musicians to constantly record their artistic audio session for instant replay accessibility and modulation. The MRAM features allow artists to constantly tweak and re-tweak instantly recorded music, pause and pick up in a recording session for efficiency and artistic flow, and provide the musician piece of mind that a live session of custom voices and step patterns recorded on-the-fly will be safely and deterministically stored in the case of an unexpected power interruption.

“Analog Keys is differentiated in the professional audio market by maximizing customization and instantly capturing an artist’s creativity,” said Scott Emley, VP, Everspin. “Everspin’s MRAM technology is ideal for professional audio applications where MRAM’s high reliability, unlimited endurance, and fastest non-volatile speed provide critical benefits to the musician’s experience.“

“When designing Analog Keys and several other Elektron professional audio products, we required a robust memory solution that could handle high-endurance usage and instant, deterministic write and access capabilities,” said Anders Gärder, CTO, Elektron Music Machines. “Everspin’s MRAM provides these features and system benefits in a single, standard-interface memory solution without the need for any external power sources such as batteries or capacitors.“

The 16Mb MR4A16BMA35 MRAM is in full production in a standard 48-ball BGA package and is designed to be used in a system like any standard 16-bit parallel memory with no software overhead. Unlike SRAM, MR4A16BMA35 is instantly non-volatile, meaning that the memory bits retain their state even after power is removed and without the need for external power sources.