NVE revises MRAM strategy, plans to push IP

NVE (Eden Prairie, Minn.) said that it had been pushing both IP and standard products for the emerging MRAM market, but the company will apparently discontinue its efforts to sell devices.

The company commented on its MRAM strategy after being informed recently by Cypress Semiconductor Corp. that the chip maker has discontinued its efforts to develop MRAM products. Cypress (San Jose) plans to sell the assets of its MRAM subsidiary.

NVE's other MRAM licensees include Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and Honeywell International.

"Cypress demonstrated 256-kilobit MRAMs working in customers' systems, which was an important accomplishment," NVE President and CEO Daniel A. Baker said in a statement.

"There is a large market for MRAM, however the market for Cypress' low-density designs is limited. Furthermore, for us to monetize our intellectual property in the Cypress designs, we would have to sell MRAM in competition with our technology licensees," he said.

"We believe that NVE is well-positioned with critical intellectual-property covering a broad range of near-term and long-term MRAM designs," he said. "Our MRAM strategy, therefore, will be to focus on an intellectual property business model, providing technology to enable revolutionary memory design rather than both providing technology and selling devices."