Toshiba and NEC recently announced that they have jointly developed advanced technologies that will push MRAM (Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) chips one step further for use in mobile electronics devices.

 

The two companies developed a new design for MTJ (Magnet Tunneling Junction), used for data storage, and managed to cut power consumption by half. Frequency of write errors is also greatly reduced. In addition, they also came up with a cross point cell structure that minimizes the cell size and runs much faster than conventional structures.

 

MRAM chips are able to retain data when the power supply is switched off, as they use magnetic charges to store information than electricity. Coupled with their smaller sizes, MRAM chips are increasingly considered as DRAM (Drastic Random Access Memory) replacements for digital devices such as personal computers, mobile phones, and portable digital players.