Everspin throws first ST-MRAM chips down, launches commercial spin-torque memory era

Who says scientific breakthroughs never amount to anything? Everspin has followed up on research developed by IBM, TDK and German researchers years back and released the first commercial spin-torque magnotoresistive RAM (ST-MRAM) onto the market. The technology works by taking advantage of electron "spin" to store data in a magnetic, rather than electronic state, providing non-volatile memory that doesn't wear out. The company said the first chips were about 50 times the cost of flash memory by size, but where a typical NAND module can perform about 800 iOPS, ST-MRAM is capable of 400,000 -- making it ideal for SSD caching and other demanding applications. Everspin has started shipping working samples of the 64MB DIMMS in a DDR3 form factor, saying that future versions will scale to gigabyte capacities and faster speeds -- keeping Moore's Law hurtling inexorably forward. Check the PR after the break for the company's spin on it.

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Filed under: Peripherals, Storage

Everspin throws first ST-MRAM chips down, launches commercial spin-torque memory era originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.