Rare Silicon Wafer - Ramtron/Cubic CU802 - FeRAM,6",150mm,Ferroelectric RAM,1998

Description

About this Listing:
This listing is for a rare and unusual silicon wafer. This is a complete Ramtron CU802 Ferroelectric RAM, FRAM or FeRAM made for Cubic Corp*. Ramtron created FRAM as an alternative to the EEPROM/Flash nonvolatile chips. It appeared to be superior in almost every way, especially in endurance being able to handle greater than 1 billion read/write cycles. It constructed like a DRAM, but used a ferroelectric layer instead of a dielectric layer. The crystal structure was bipolar and could be flipped with the application of electricity to represent ones and zeros. Unfortunately, FRAM could not keep up with the density of EEPROM and FRAM dropped from technology landscape in the 2010s. However, there is now a renewed interest in FRAM technology for use in battery-less products.
* In 1998, Cubic Transportation Corp. selected Ramtron's CU802 for use in its "contactless smart card". Cubic created a design for the next generation transportation fare card called the Go Card. This card utilized the CU802 for non-volatile storage. Cubic at that time was a very large producer of fare collection systems (subways,buses,etc.) in major cities on five continents. Ultimately Fujitsu, under license from Ramtron, produced the vast majority of the chips used in these cards, so Ramtron produced very few of these wafers. The last picture above is a micro-photograph of the Ramtron and Cubic logos on the wafer. Produced in
1998, this wafer would be a great addition to your wafer or storage technology collection.
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