Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Magnetic memory

Freescale Semiconductor has won the race to get <A HREF="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6092242.html?tag=nl.e589">a magnetic form of computer memory</A> to market, but its high price could keep it from appearing in machines in the near future. On Monday, the Austin, Texas-based specialist in embedded semiconductors released its MR2A16A chip, which the company says is the first commercial MRAM, or magnetoresistive random access memory, device. MRAM is faster than most other types of computer memory; Freescale's chip promises to read or write data in 35 nanoseconds. In addition, MRAM can hold data even after the computer is turned off. Proponents say it could replace both flash memory, used inside cell phones and cameras, and DRAM, employed inside computers to shuttle data to the processor.

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