Elpida takes ReRAM to prime time

Expects to have Gigabit chips ready by next year.

Elpida (TYO:6665) has already developed an experimental ReRAM (Resistive RAM) chip with a capacity of 64Mb in 50nm process technology, according to a press release from the company. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO), a Japanese-funded public institution contributed to the development.

The company plans to commercialise a 30nm version together with Sharp in 2013 The chips will have a write time of 10ns which is comparable to current DRAM, but will also be non-volatile.  While not lasting forever, the endurance is expected to be around one million cycles, which is an order of magnitude better than NAND flash. On top of that ReRAM is bit addressable – whereas NAND requires the re-write of an entire block when a single bit changes.

The press release does not specify the materials used by Elpida or give any price indication.  It should also be noted that Epia is rumoured to be in be in negotiations of a merger with U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc. and Taiwan’s Nanya Technology Corp.

The Gigabit chip from Elpida is expected to put it on a head on collision course with South Korean Hynix, which is expected to revel a chip of roughly the same capacity ready for production at about the same time.S|A

 

Updated: 26 January 2012 12:30pm.  Typo of volatile corrected to non-volatile.

The following two tabs change content below.