Allied Minds demonstrates new memory technology

A new, more versatile form of memory, with potential applications from smartphones to the automotive industry, was a step closer on Thursday, with Allied Minds announcing the successful demonstration of a prototype of 'Spin Transfer Magneto-Resistive Random Access Memory' (ST-MRAM) technology.

The FTSE 250 science and technology development and commercialisation company said the milestone achievement by its subsidiary Spin Transfer also proved the company's advanced prototyping magnetics processing line at its Fremont, California facility was fully operational.

The prototypes incorporated proprietary, performance-enhancing 'spin-filtering' technology, and were fabricated on industry standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) wafers sources from a high-volume Asian foundry supplier, the company said.

Allied Minds described ST-MRAM as a patented alternative to current memory technologies such as Flash, and Dynamic and Static Random-Access Memory (DRAM and SRAM).

It said it delivered the benefits of high-speed volatile memory, as with DRAM and SRAM, and non-volatile memory, as with Flash, in a single solution, making it ideal for a range of products such as mobile devices, data storage systems, industrial, automotive and cache memory.

The memory market alone generated revenues of more than $60bn (£41bn) each year, according to the company.

Allied Minds CEO Chris Silva described the prototype as a fantastic achievement for Spin Transfer Technologies.

"They have successfully demonstrated that they have created a new solution that brings performance advantages to the global memory market", he said.

"STT is one of our most valuable subsidiaries, and today's milestone of a functioning prototype is a critical step in bringing the technology to market", he added.

Barry Hoberman, CEO of Spin Transfer Technologies, said the demonstration of a prototype was paving the way to commercialisation for the new technology.

"Using 60 nanometre perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction devices, our technologies have successfully integrate our proprietary memory design on standard CMOS wafers at our state-of-the-art clean room facility", he said.

Hoberman added that the pioneering development put STT at the forefront of memory innovation for the industry.