"Wunderkind" Transmeta mit katastrophalen Zahlen

Transmeta to miss revenue expectations (TMTA) by Tomi Kilgore
 
Transmeta (TMTA) said it fell "substantially short" of production goals for certain products in November. As a result, it now expects revenue for the fourth quarter to
be approximately $1 million, while analysts surveyed by Multex and been forecasting revenue of $5 million, on average. "We are disappointed by these results," said Murray Goldman, the chipmaker's chairman and chief executive. "In
the meantime, we are continuing to manufacture our new products in small volumes until our new mask set is in production, and our production plan contemplates volume production for customer shipments in early February."

Zur Zeit 30% runter...

Gruß Dr. Broemme

was meinst Du, welche Unternehmen von einer erfolgreichen Markteinführung von MRAM nach derzeitigem Wissensstand am ehesten profitieren ?
Oder hast Du Dir in diese Richtung bis jetzt weniger Gedanken gemacht ?

non-magnetic layers -- which can be either electrically conducting or insulating -- display very large changes in resistance when subjected to magnetic fields. Giant Magnetoresistance, or GMR, as large as 110% occurs in conducting-layer structures at room temperature in relatively large magnetic fields (~ 20,000 Oerstad (Oe); the earth's magnetic field is 0.5 Oe). In insulating-layer structures (magnetic tunnel junctions, or MTJs), room-temperature Tunneling MR (TMR) as large as 47% is found
in much smaller magnetic fields (~1-10 Oe).

Precise engineering of the materials and structures enables useful structures to be made for advanced read heads in magnetic hard-disk drives or the basic elements for non-volatile MTJ random-access memories (MTJ-RAM). Indeed, IBM has made many tens of millions of GMR read heads for the industry's most advanced disk drives, and many hundreds of millions of these devices will be made in the near future.
MRAM could enable truly non-volatile random access memory with both the high speed of today's StaticRAM and the high density of DynamicRAM. Such a memory could enable instant-on computers and, due to their low power consumption, extend the battery life of portable electronics.

In principle, incorporating MTJs into RAM is straightforward: the multilayer element replaces the charge-storing capacitor of current designs. Because charge leaks continually from the capacitor, power must be consumed to repeatedly refresh the memory. It also means that when users turn on their computers, they must wait for information to be transferred from the hard disk to memory during the "boot up" process (and vice versa during shutdown). But many materials, circuit design and
manufacturing challenges must be overcome before MTJ-RAM devices will become practical.

In this paper, I will describe our recent progress at IBM Research. Over the past 30 months, we have begun to demonstrate the potential of MTJ-RAM technology, but many challenges remain before products can  be considered.

1) We used photo- and electron-beam lithography to create working MTJ memory cells on a silicon substrate. This is an essential first step for many aspects of our research. We are continuing to develop processes that will provide uniformly high-quality structures across the entire
working surface. It is critical that all the MTJs operate with nearly identical characteristics.

2) We reduced the MTJ device resistance more than 10-million-fold.  Because the overall resistance of a magnetic tunnel junction increases as the junction dimensions decrease, MTJs must have a proportionally
lower resistance as the feature size decreases in order to make practical high-density chips. By carefully controlling the thickness and integrity of the aluminum dioxide tunnel barrier (no pinholes can be tolerated!), the  resistance has been reduced from 1 billion ohm-microns-squared to 60
ohm-microns-squared. The barrier, which is as thin as 10 angstroms --about four atomic layers -- is created by depositing and then oxidizing a thin film of aluminum.

3) We increased the low-field TMR five-fold: from 10 percent to nearly 50 percent. MJTs with increased TMR produce a larger signal, which has many practical benefits, including permitting more flexibility in designing circuits. Two factors led to the increased TMR: a) Optimizing the
ferromagnetic cobalt-iron alloy, and b) designing MTJs with the same sort of "anti-ferromagnetic biasing" that makes GMR heads for disk drives so successful.

4) We measured MTJ reading and writing times as fast as 10
nanoseconds -- some six times faster than today's fastest DRAM memory. Such an extremely fast speed results from both the high TMR and low device resistance.

5) We have increased the thermal stability of MTJ structures from 100 C to about 250 C. We expect to need further testing and improvements in thermal stability before we can use MTJs in applications.

Hört sich auf jeden Fall sehr interessant an. Stellt sich auch die Frage, wer die Technologie für die Laser hat, die zur Herstellung benötigt werden. Wenn es zur Massenproduktion kommt, sollten die entsprechenden Firmen auch enorm profitieren.

Ist Lambda da nicht tätig? Aber da kenne ich mich nun wirklich nicht gut aus.

Gruß Dr. Broemme

MRAM hat nach Auffassung von Experten und Marktbeobachtern das Potenzial, die Speicherlandschaft von heute zu revolutionieren, da es sich zwar wie RAM verhält, aber nicht flüchtig ist, also bei Abschalten der Stromversorgung die Daten beibehält. Somit kann MRAM gleichzeitig als Arbeits- und Massenspeicher auf dem gleichen Modul eingesetzt werden, was wiederum einfachere Architekturen, geringere Abmessungen und letztlich die Produktion preiswerterer Geräte ermöglicht.

Außer für Desktop-Computer eignet sich MRAM vor allem für mobile Geräte wie Handys und PDAs und kann dort Speichermedien wie DRAM, Festplatten und Flash-Memory ersetzen. Da MRAM die Unterscheidung zwischen Massen- und Arbeitsspeicher überflüssig macht, würden die lästigen langen Ladezeiten beim Booten eines Computers oder Einschalten eines Mobiltelefons wegfallen. Da die DRAM-typischen Schreibzyklen drastisch reduziert werden, verlängert sich zudem laut Motorola die Lebensdauer von Akkus erheblich.

Neben Motorola forscht vor allem IBM in Zusammenarbeit mit Infineon an der MRAM(MagRAM)-Technology. Demgegenüber setzen japanische und koreanische Firmen mehr auf ferroelektrische Speicher (FRAM und FeRAM), mit denen sie etwa drei Jahre Entwicklungsvorsprung haben. Toshiba präsentiert auf der ISSCC bereits FeRAM-Bausteine mit 8 MBit. Hauptnachteil der FeRAMs gegenüber MRAMs ist jedoch die beschränkte Anzahl der Lese/Scheibzyklen.

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Und noch was zu Lambda und Jenoptik (allerdings auch schon ein halbes Jahr alt):


Lambda, Jenoptik launch joint venture for EUV beam sources in lithography

GÖTTINGEN, Germany -- Lambda Physik AG and Jenoptik Laser Optik Systeme GmbH today in Germany announced a joint venture to develop, produce, and market new radiation sources for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.

The new venture, called Xtreme technologies GmbH, aims to produce prototypes of EUV beam sources by next year, said the two German partners.

EUV radiation sources are among the critical systems and infrastructure technologies needed to launch next-generation lithography once optical exposure tools reach their limits in shrinking transistor feature sizes. The formation of Extreme is in response to growing industry support for EUV technology as the leading candidate to follow 157-nm tools, said Manfred Rahe, chief technology officer of Lambda Physik in Göttingen.

"The semiconductor industry favors EUV as the successor technology," he said. "Our goal is to offer customers a complete range of light source products with shorter wavelengths for the production of more efficient microchips."

The Xtreme joint venture is equally owned by Lambda Physik and Jenoptik in Jena. The venture will maintain sites in Göttingen and Jena to develop electrically excited discharge plasmas and laser-produced plasma sources.

Lambda Physik said it will contribute expertise in gas discharge and pulsed circuit technologies as well as excimer and solid-state laser technologies. Jenoptik Laser Optik will contribute its know-how in solid-state laser development and in optics.

"In addition to the target market of lithography, we also see good chances of using the developed EUV sources in other areas of application," said Uwe Stamm, co-manager of the new venture who was the head of Lambda Physik's Science and Medicine Division

The first stage of development will run until 2004 and set the foundation for follow-on generations of EUV production sources. The first prototypes of EUV beam sources are expected to become operational at application sites in 2002, said the two partners.



Und obendrein quasselt der kleine Mann in meinem Ohr schon wieder die ganze Zeit was von Infineon, Infineon, Infineon...  *g*

Und bei FRAM kommen wieder meine Ramtron ins Spiel :-)

IBM ist auf so vielen Sektoren Marktführer und auch schon entsprechend "gewürdigt" in der Bewertung.

Gruß Dr. Broemme