ADVANCED SOLID-STATE MEMORY SYSTEMS AND PRODUCTS: EMERGING NON-VOLATILE MEMORY TECHNOLOGIES, INDUSTRY TRENDS AND MARKET ANALYSIS

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REPORT SUMMARY

Solid-state memories read and write data with great speed, enabling swift processing. High-performance versions, such as static and dynamic random access memory (SRAM and DRAM, respectively), use the electronic state of transistors and capacitors to store data bits. These chips lose their data, however, when the computer powers down – or crashes. Currently, solid-state memories constitute a market of over $50 billion, while the non-volatile segment is much smaller.

A few computers use non-volatile chips, which retain data when the power is off, as a solid-state drive in place of a hard disc drive (HDD). The now ubiquitous smart cell phones and other handheld devices also use non-volatile memory, but there is a trade-off between cost and performance. The cheapest non-volatile memory is flash memory, which, among other uses, is the basis of the little flash drives that people have hanging from their key rings. Flash memory, however, is slow and unreliable in comparison with other memory chips. Each time the high-voltage pulse (the “flash” of the name) writes a memory cell, the cell is damaged; it becomes unusable after only perhaps 10,000 writing operations. Nevertheless, because of its low cost, flash memory has become a dominant memory technology, particularly for applications in which the data will not be changed very often.

Industry estimates showed the DRAM market to be as much as $40 billion in 2010. However, the computing world is crying out for a memory chip with high data density that is also cheap, fast, reliable and non-volatile. With such a memory, computing devices would become much simpler and smaller, more reliable, faster and less energy consuming. Research groups around the world are investigating several approaches to meet this demand, including systems based on emerging non-volatile random access memory products.

Besides computers, today’s portable electronics have become computationally intensive devices as the user interface has migrated to a fully multimedia experience. To provide the performance required for these applications, the portable electronics designer uses multiple types of memories: a medium-speed random access memory for continuously changing data, a high-speed memory for caching instructions to the CPU, and a slower, non-volatile memory for long-term information storage when the power is removed. Combining all of these memory types into a single memory has been a long-standing goal of the semiconductor industry.

It is highly likely that different alternatives are needed for different application segments of the markets, and a good match has to be found between solid-state memory product requirements and technology capabilities.

Seven emerging non-volatile memory technologies such as ferromagnetic RAM (FeRAM or F-RAM),  phase change random access memory (PCM, PC-RAM, PRAM, OUM), magneto-resistive RAM (MRAM, STT RAM, race track memory), resistance switching RAM (RRAM, ReRAM, CB-RAM, PMC-RAM, nano-bridge RAM CMOx, memistors), zero capacitor (ZRAM), quantum dot RAM and polymer printed memory are poised as possible candidate to become the successor of flash memory.  This is thanks to the improved performance in direct write, bit granularity, better endurance, read access time and write throughput.

Major findings of this report are:

·        The 2010 global market for emerging non-volatile random access memory products was projected to have reached $115 million. This market will increase to $1,590 million by 2015 showing an average annual growth rate of 69% per year from 2010 to 2015.

·        Of the six major regions surveyed for the period, North America captured about 42% of the market in 2010, followed by Europe at 36%, and the rest of the world (ROW) with 22%, dominated by Japan, Korea and China.

·        The market for emerging non-volatile random access memory used as an embedded system on chip SOC cards in 2010 will be highest with more 50% of the market. This will be followed by distant market share for RFID tags used in goods which are transported by high-speed detection conveyors, smart airbags used in automobiles, radiation-hardened memory in aerospace and nuclear installations, printed memory  platforms (such as smart cards, games, sensors, display, storage-class memory network) and high end smart mobile phones.

·        Commercial uses of these new breeds of NV-RAM have been very slow to appear because of the rapid reduction of per-bit costs of conventional flash memory technologies already in the market. However, these new technologies are sure to capture some specific markets for lower power or zero stand-by system implementation as “green” technology grows.

·        Among the seven emerging non-volatile random access memory  technologies covered in this report, in 2010 the potential market for zero capacitor (ZRAM)  is      highest. The polymer printed memory market in 2010 will be next highest, followed by ferromagnetic RAM as a distant third.

·        In 2015, phase change memory (PCM, PC-RAM, PRAM, OUM) will have the highest market share. FeRAM will be next highest, followed by zero capacitor RAM (ZRAM).

     ·      MRAM promises a high capacity, next-generation memory that can replace   

            SRAM/flash combos and battery-backed up RAM as well as supplying improved 

           non-volatile memory solutions for high-end mobile products. MRAM is already in 

           the sampling stage.

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