Nanotechnology-Enabled Memory Market to Surpass $7 Billion in 2010

NanoMarkets:  The market for nano-enabled
memory will grow to $7 billion ($US) in 2010, up from $1.4 billion on 2008.
   As current memory solutions reach their limits in terms of both scaling
and the speed and capacity requirements of next-generation mobile
communications, nano-enabled memory solutions will become increasingly
important commercially.  For more details about the report, including a first
chapter, table of contents and excerpt, please visit http://www.nanomarkets.net.
Members of the accredited trade press may request an executive summary of the
report.

   Market Outlook:
   By 2010 NanoMarkets predicts that four key segments will have emerged in
the nano-enabled memory markets: MRAM, Ovonic, Holographic and
Nanocrystalline. NanoMarkets projects that MRAM will account for $1.5 billion
in revenues in 2010 followed by holographic and nanocrystalline at $980
million each and ovonic memory at $877 million. MRAM promises a high-capacity
next-generation memory that can replace SRAM/Flash combos and battery-backed
up RAM as well as supplying improved non-volatile memory solutions for high-
end mobile products. MRAM is already sampling and there are as many as 20
firms actively pursuing this opportunity. Meanwhile, important firms such as
Intel, Freescale, Micron, Samsung, STMicroelectronics are beginning to settle
on new technology platforms for the post-Flash era and are finding ovonic and
nanocrystalline memories increasingly to their liking. NanoMarkets also
believes that holographic memory is likely to be a prime contender for both
high-end data storage and consumer video media markets in the not-too-distant-
future.
   Nanomemory has made a slow start with several promised product launches
that have failed to materialize. Nonetheless, after talking with many
executives in the semiconductor industry and at OEMs, NanoMarkets sees 2010 as
a breakout year for nanomemory, because by that time, conventional solutions
will simply be unable to scale further or provide the memory requirements
needed for ubiquitous computing. Of course, NanoMarkets heard similar stories
when it researched this area two years ago, but we believe that technical
improvements (such as lower power requirements for ovonic memory) and real
commitments from larger firms to specific nanomemory platforms (Freescale to
nanocrystalline memories) have now brought nanomemory much closer to reality.

   What's Driving the Market?
   The main reason for such growing commitments is that scaling has now
become a serious issue for the memory industry. At 65 nm leakage is a major
hurdle and 65-nm fabs will be up and running in just a year or so. 3D
structures offer one solution, but there's a limit on how far you can go with
this dodge. Similarly, SRAM makers have largely abandoned large 6T cells in
portable devices in favor of 1T pseudo SRAM (PSRAM). But again, this is only a
holding action until something better comes along. And Flash has a serious
architectural scaling problem that seems likely to become critical well below
90 nm.
   Such problems are making both semiconductor firms and OEMs take
nanomemories much more seriously than they did a couple of years ago. Not only
are many of these new technologies inherently more scalable, but they seem
well suited to the next generation of mobile computing and communications that
will cry out for high capacity memories capable of storing and rapidly
accessing video and large databases without overburdening battery power
sources.
   Nanomemory solutions seem to be a key technology in light of such
problems. For example, nanocrystalline memories can bring non-volatile memory
right onto the CPU chip, increasing data access times and reducing power and
chip count. Nanotube technology may replace on-chip SRAM in L2 cache and would
considerably reduce the power consumption of today's CPUS, MRAM could even
prove a threat to the disk-drive industry. A large bank of low-power, fast,
non-volatile MRAM memories could hold the computer's system and applications
software in addition to all data, enabling an  instant on  notebook that could
last all day on a single battery.  Nano-enabled Memory and
Storage, 2006 & Beyond   Publ 20060206