ITRI, Taiwan’s IC research lab which brought advanced chip processing to the island in 1976 via a CMOS licence from RCA, has transferred transferred FRAM and SOT-MRAM processes to domestic IC manufacturers, reports Digitimes.

Over the years, ITRI scaled the 7micron RCA CMOS process and, as each node became ready for commercial production, it was transferred to a local semiconductor company.

ITRI has been developing FRAM and SOT-MRAM for ten years. The Institute sees the processes as being useful for AI IoT products – AI at the edge.

FRAM enables low-power consumption for IoT and portable electronics devices, while MRAM provides a performance advantage for applications such as self-driving vehicles and datacentres.

ITRI’s SOT-MRAM technology is said to achieve not only high speeds but also high stability, thanks to the memory’s three-terminal structure enabling different paths for reading and writing operations.

ITRI has established a platform for its SOT-MRAM technology certification and trial runs on 8-inch wafers.