Embedded and Stand-Alone NVM

“The overall emerging NVM market will grow at a CAGR 2020-2026 ~44%“, asserts Simone Bertolazzi, market and technology analyst, memory, Yole Développement. “After several years in development, embedded emerging NVM technologies have gained significant maturity and are now ready for market take off.“

The year 2020 has witnessed the introduction of the first commercial products based on eMRAM, namely Sony’s GPS SoCs manufactured by Samsung (28nm FDSOI) and used in Huawei’s smartwarches, as well as Ambiq’s low-power MCUs manufactured by TSMC on 22nm ultra-low leakage (ULL) process.

A number of eMRAM-based devices could enter volume production in 2021, among which are GreenWave’s AI processors with GlobalFoundries’ eMRAM (22nm FDSOI) as well as edge-AI accelerators developed by Numen and Gyrfalcon (22nm ULL at TSMC).

Products incorporating embedded RRAM (eRRAM) also hit the market in 2020 with Nuvoton-Panasonic introducing new IC devices with 40nm OxRAM for security applications.

Yole investigates disruptive technologies and related markets, to point out the latest innovations and underline the business opportunities. The Emerging Non-Volatile Memory 2021 report presents an overview of the semiconductor memory market and provides an understanding of emerging NVM technologies and applications.

In parallel, Yole’s partner System Plus Consulting SARL has carried a comprehensive analysis of Intel Optane 128GB DIMMs in its dedicated report.

For Belinda Dube, technology and cost analyst, System Plus Consulting: “The 3D XPoint memory forms a vertical structure with multilevel memory cell array. This strategy is used to increase the density of the cells. The memory cells use a phase change material. Instead of using transistors used by conventional memories, bit storage is based on a change of material resistance. The memory cells present a material with variable electrical resistance due to a change in the crystal structure.“