Resistive non-volatile memory imperceptibly penetrates life. The Japanese company Panasonic announced the start of production of microcontrollers with built-in ReRAM memory with technological standards of 40 nm. But the presented chip is also interesting for many other reasons.
As the press release informs us , in February, the company will begin shipping samples of a multifunctional microcontroller to protect things with an Internet connection from numerous cyber threats. An important feature of the controller will be a block of built-in ReRAM memory with a capacity of 256 KB.
ReRAM memory is based on the principle of controlled resistance in the oxide layer, which makes it very resistant to radiation. Thus, this microcontroller will be in demand for managing the protection of medical equipment in the production of instruments and preparations using radiation exposure during disinfection (sterilization).
Let's dwell a little more on ReRAM. Panasonic has been developing this type of memory for about 20 years, and maybe even longer. The company launched the production of microcontrollers with ReRAM in 2013 using a 180-nm process technology. At that time, Panasonic's ReRAM could not compete with NAND. Subsequently, for the development and production of ReRAM with 40 nm standards, Panasonic teamed up with the Taiwanese company UMC.
Most likely, the Panasonic microcontrollers with 40-nm ReRAM presented today were produced at the Japanese UMC factories (purchased several years ago from Fujitsu). Embedded 40nm ReRAM can already compete with embedded 40nm NAND in a number of ways: speed, reliability, more erase cycles, and radiation resistance.
As for the main functions of the Panasonic microcontroller, it has increased protection against hacking and data theft. The solution will be applied in industrial devices and in a wide range of infrastructure. Each chip has a unique analog identifier built into it - something like a human fingerprint. Using this “fingerprint”, a unique key will be generated to authenticate the chip on the network and to transfer (remove) data from it. The key will never come out and will be destroyed immediately after authentication, which will protect the key from being intercepted in the controller's memory.
Also, the microcontroller is armed with an NFC transceiver. Data from the controller can be read even in the event of a power failure of the device, for example, if the attackers turned off the electricity at the protected facility. In addition, using NFC and a mobile device, the controller (platform) can be connected to the Internet even without deploying a network specifically for this. ISPs remain a weak point, but this is not Panasonic's problem.
Source: 3dnews.ru