Emerging Memories May Never Go Beyond Niche Applications

It is time for a frank discussion about emerging memories. Many have now been percolating for decades with the promise of displacing established incumbents such as DRAM and NAND flash. But will emerging memories ever see the light of day? Despite research breakthroughs and new patents on potentially disruptive technologies, DRAM and NAND technologies continue to advance despite the slowing of Moore’s Law. That means the goal posts are always moving for the possible replacements. MRAM, ReRAM, FRAM and PCRAM are often discussed in the context of emerging use cases such as automotive, industrial Internet of things (IoT), edge computing and sensor nodes, even AI and machine learning. But they often fall short where its counts: reliability and longevity.