In 2020, Artificial Intelligence and the need for more advanced memory and storage technology will be two key trends gaining momentum.

Demand for larger and more efficient memories will continue to grow rapidly throughout the year, fueled by the expansion of AI. Processors increasingly require larger, faster and more power efficient memories to operate, with growing internal caches struggling to cater to this demand. While the embedded memory market has utilized the same SRAM and Flash cells for decades, the growing need for larger memories will push the search for smaller, lower power, memory cells to center stage. MRAM and ReRAM are promising new technologies to address this, and some foundries are already working on adding MRAM to their offering, with ReRAM soon to follow.

In addition, the need for larger storage devices will grow even faster in 2020, necessary to support the increasing number of surveillance cameras, personal videos, and data collected by governments and corporates globally. To address this demand, Flash memory providers will continue to add more layers of 3D NAND but there will also be a strong shift towards emerging memory technologies, which will start accounting for a more significant share of the market. MRAM is reaching productization with companies starting to sell discrete memory chips based on this technology. ReRAM is also making significant productization progress and we expect to see initial orders in 2020.

AI’s rapid expansion into new applications will continue, evidenced by acquisitions such as Habana Labs. In parallel to current AI technology, Neuromorphic Computing will become a major research target as a cornerstone in the future of AI. Research examining the use of ReRAM as the enabler for Neuromorphic Computing will also be a focus in 2020.