Cost-effective FRAM has become a mainstream professional market

Ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) has superior high-speed writing, high read/write performance, and low power consumption compared with conventional non-volatile memories such as EEPROM and FLASH. As a leading supplier of FRAM, Fujitsu Semiconductor holds a certain market share in applications where FRAM is widely used as a memory. According to statistics, during the 14 years from 1999 to 2013, the cumulative delivery volume of Fujitsu FRAM ferroelectric memory products reached 2.3 billion. In addition to advantageous industries, new business areas such as renewable energy, RFID medical instruments, hearing aids, and smart water/gas/heat meters also have a large demand for FRAM. This market has great potential, and Fujitsu Semiconductor will also develop this part of the market.

FRAM performance beats traditional memory

In some applications such as medical, industrial control, and new energy, which require high safety and stability, FRAM's high durability, low power consumption, and radiation resistance have advantages. At the 2013 Industrial Computer and Embedded Systems Exhibition, Wu Hongjie, a senior product engineer in the marketing department of Fujitsu Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., said that in the medical field, FRAM's radiation resistance is a big advantage. Another example is the electricity meter industry for data. Records are very frequent, the refresh rate is generally in the order of milliseconds, and our products have high durability and non-volatile characteristics, so it is also very suitable for this field. In addition, in the automotive field, the vehicle driving recorder used by the automobile needs to record the driving status of the vehicle within the last 15 seconds of parking or traffic accidents. If the memory speed is not fast enough, this data is difficult to store, and the FRAM data The write cycle time is very short and therefore very competitive.

Although cost is high, cost is more important

FRAM has the characteristics beyond the traditional non-volatile memory, however, it is still mainly active in some professional markets with high security and stability requirements. The mass market still tends to use traditional memories such as EEPROM and FLASH. Or the cost of FRAM is higher than other products.

Although the cost of FRAM is higher, FRAM has already been reduced in cost to a certain extent than when it first appeared in the market. Wu Hongjie said that since Fujitsu started FRAM in 1999, product prices have been declining. As costs have fallen, customers have gradually increased.

Considering that product cost-effectiveness is more reasonable than single-chip cost, Fujitsu FRAM products are more cost-effective than other products. Wu Hongjie said that from the customer's point of view, the single-chip cost is not the only standard to be considered in terms of cost, and many customers will also consider the post-maintenance and the overall BOM cost. For example, some users in the communications and industrial fields will choose an SRAM plus a battery, but this cost has no advantage over FRAM. SRAM adds a capacitor plus an EEPROM. When a problem occurs, the capacitor is used to maintain the system operation. , And then put RAM data into EEPROM, this will increase the complexity of the system, and there is a certain risk, so this kind of solution does not have much advantage. The other is the SRAM plus the battery. The hidden danger is greater because the battery itself has a service life. Under some harsh working conditions, the battery may rot and other risks. Therefore, in terms of integration, FRAM is more cost-effective.

As FRAM becomes more familiar with the industry, designers are also slowly turning to FRAM solutions. “In the past, the design adopted for the meter was the EEPROM plus the circuit for power-fail detection. After realizing this was more complicated, designers started to adopt the FRAM solution gradually,” said Wu Hongjie. “In addition, in the early days, some industrial controls and Many customers in the telecommunications sector use the faster SRAM plus battery solution, but these solutions are less secure. After that, most customers are beginning to adopt a single FRAM solution."

Fujitsu's FRAM product line is dominated by small capacity and rarely seen in large-capacity products. This is related to the high cost of large-capacity FRAM and the relative sensitivity of companies to cost. Wu Hongjie said that the market tends to use small-capacity memory such as 16K, and there are fewer large-capacity users, which is the reason for high capacity costs. Therefore, many customers with large capacity requirements will store important data in FRAM, and general data will be stored in EEPROM or FLASH.

Actively develop and develop new markets

Speaking of future R&D directions, Wu Hongjie pointed out that Fujitsu will also improve many deficiencies - lower power consumption, larger capacity, and higher integration, such as integrating clocks and timers.

In addition to the traditional industrial control, medical and other fields, some emerging areas are also potential markets for FRAM and will be an important growth point for FRAM in the future. Wu Hongjie said that smart meters are a promising market, and now the grid transformation is in a period of growth. There are 3 to 400 million potential smart meter home users. At the same time, smart water meters and functional gas meters have only just begun. Due to the shortage of resources in the future, The user's demand for accuracy will also be higher and higher, so these areas have very large growth potential. Fujitsu’s share is also growing in other areas including automobiles and healthcare.