Global Ferroelectric RAM Market 2016-2020

Overview of the global ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM) market

Market research analysts at Technavio have predicted that the global ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM) market will grow steadily during the forecast period and will post a CAGR of almost 6% by 2020. This market research analysis identifies the lower consumption of power by FeRAMs as one of the primary growth factors for this market. FeRAMs consume almost 50% less power than other flash memories and are mainly used in battery-powered wireless sensors. This increases the battery life and reduces maintenance costs, which will subsequently help vendors have a competitive edge over competitors by offering products at a comparatively lower price. Moreover, FeRAM has additional benefits over other RAMs as it has a faster wake-up time and also eliminates the need to save and restore data. FeRAM also helps in automatic system updates especially in wireless applications, which will again aid in the growth of the market.

The increasing adoption of FeRAM-based smart meters is identified to be one of the major trends that will gain traction in the market in the coming years. FeRAM-based smart meters have the feature to write data 1000 times faster than meters using other flash memory such as DRAM. Also, FeRAM consumes very less power which enables smart meter manufacturers to include RAM as a cost-effective memory hardware in their products. Additionally, F-RAM or FeRAM also improves the efficiency and lifespan of smart meters as it requires very less power and offers high write speed, which will result in an exponential increase in their adoption by smart meter vendors.

Competitive landscape and key vendors

FeRAM is an emerging technology and has gained attention only in some applications such as smart meters, smart cards, and event data recorder (EDR) in the automotive sector. The market is characterized by the presence of a very few major vendors. FeRAM delivers higher rewrite durability, faster data rewrite, and lower power consumption than the non-volatile memories used nowadays. As a result, there will be an increasing demand for FeRAMs, inturn, intensifying the competition among vendors to increase their revenue share from the market. One of the leading vendors ROHM recently announced the availability of a 64-Kbit FeRAM with a serial bus that is optimized for smart meters, car navigation systems, healthcare equipment, and other applications requiring frequent log data acquisition.