Talk:Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory

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[edit] "faster than SRAM"

Is it really supposed to be faster than the SRAM used for CPU caches? The main part of the article only mentions that it should be denser than SRAM. Amaurea 17:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, could do with scientific references here to justify these statements. A quick google gives me an article from this April in Science [1], which says "IBM has obtained read times of 3ns in 1kb research memories, Freescale has demonstrated a 25-ns cycle time for its 4-Mb MRAM, and Cypress Semiconductor is targeting a 70-ns cycle time for its 256-kb MRAM." The article in Science states that there is recent research which indicates that much faster MRAM may be produced in future. So I think it depends on whether you're talking about the situation right now (I think 10ns cycle time SRAM is available currently), or what the potential of the technology is.

Freescale Semiconductor data sheet for MR2A16A, see www.freescale.com and enter Part Number MR2A16A.
Cypress Semiconductor datasheet for CY9C62256, see www.chipcatalog.com/Cypress/CY9C62256-70SC.htm.

Average Earthman 18:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

i beleive the "faster than SRAM" was a misquote by wired.com from IBM, who quoted it as being 6x faster than DRAM.. (corrected)

was this page taken from www.mrsci.com/Computer-Memory/MRAM.php , or did they steal it from wikipedia?? - 2nd feb —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.205.148.8 (talk • contribs) 20:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

They copied it from Wikipedia. Note that Wikipedia is not copyrighted. Average Earthman 20:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, it is under the GFDL, so they should give credit to Wikipedia and mention the license, ideally. I know some people here feel quite strongly about that (I don't though), and we have a page for listing noncompliant sites. mrsci does not seem compliant, and actually claims all rights for itself. Amaurea 10:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] needs expansion of info

Note: the description section needs to be expanded to include all the various types of MRAM. The comparison section needs to add other forms of memory such as FRAM. Earthsound 22:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] history?

so..what happened between 1989 and 2000?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MRAM&oldid=63136685#Current_History

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 00:03, 11 July 2006 (talk • contribs) 71.103.116.182.


I'm pretty sure that Gary Prinz of the Naval Research Lab actually wrote the patent for MRAM in the 90s. The article reads like it is written by someonefrom IBM...pretty typical to leave off the accomplishments of others.

[edit] Core memory

Sounds like MRAM is a much-refined reincarnation of the old core memory used back in 1401 and 1620 days. Jm546 00:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No more so than a hard drive – that's magnetic too. Note that MRAM, unlike core, has a non-destructive read. This leads to overall operation considerably different than core. On the other hand, FeRAM uses ferromagnetic elements, but does operate like code. There's no simple comparison here. Maury 22:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just found an article interesting regarding the history of MRAM

http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/press-release.pag?docid=38856487

which recognizes "Northern Lights Semiconductor Corporation (NLSC)" for excellence research in MRAM. I heard NLSC has successufully developped 64Kbits MRAM since long time ago...say 2000..and demo that in many places. Now they have 1M&16Mbits design. Any one knows about this company? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.224.13.94 (talk) 16:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] MRAM vs DRAM

The article seems to cover the issue of DRAM vs MRAM a lot. But realisticly, is MRAM really aiming to compete with DRAM? It seems to me that being non-volatile, it's more aiming to compete against other non volatile memory chips like PRAM, FeRAM and flash memory (NOR and NAND). Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems more likely that some other volatile memory chip will replace DRAM. Also, why is there no coverage of MRAM vs PRAM & FeRAM. As one of the AFAIK more promising NV rams in development seems to be it's more significant then MRAM vs DRAM. Also does it strike anyone else that parta are too duplicative. E.g. "Since the capacitors used in DRAM lose their charge over time, memory assemblies using them must periodically refresh all the cells in their chips approximately 1000 times a second, reading each one and re-writing its contents. This demands a constant power supply, which is why DRAM loses its memory when power is turned off on the computer." isn't this just telling us what volatile memory is? Wouldn't it be better to just say MRAM is NV and DRAM is V? Nil Einne (talk) 19:05, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External magnetic field

What about resistance of MRAM to external magnetic field? Do the MRAM chips need protection from such fields, similar to floppy disks or hard drives? I think the article should contain some info about this. Ghalas (talk) 09:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)