Samsung Is Now Mass Producing eMRAM

Get ready to learn some new acronyms. Samsung announced Tuesday that it's started mass production of its first embedded magnetic random access memory (eMRAM) product based on its 28nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) process technology, dubbed 28FDS.

The company said its first 28FDS-based eMRAM product is supposed to offer a trifecta of better performance, reduced power usage and lower costs when compared to current-gen eFlash products. It didn't offer specific details about these improvements, however, nor did it offer a photo of the product. The closest Samsung came to offering an exact figure was its claim that eMRAM can write data "approximately 1,000 times faster than eFlash" because it doesn't require an erase cycle first. And a 1,000 percent jump in performance is nothing to sneeze at.

Samsung also said that eMRAM uses lower voltages and doesn't consume electricity when it's turned off, so it can offer improved power effiency. 

The company explained that it's making eMRAM products to be used as "plug-in modules," claiming this will allow customers to continue using existing design infrastructures with eMRAM while also saving money. 

And that's just the eMRAM side of things. Samsung added that using the 28FDS process is supposed to offer "better transistor control" and minimize "leakage current through body-bias control." The idea is for these eMRAM products to be used for everything from the Internet of Things (IoT) to artificial intelligence (AI).

Samsung isn't the only company working on eMRAM products. GlobalFoundries announced that it was incorporating SOI and eMRAM technologies into its 22FDX platform back in 2016. Intel announced in February that it's also ready for mass production of what it called spin-transferable torque magnetoresistive RAM (STT-MRAM) tech, which is the non-marketing term for eMRAM.