Idaho Patent of the Month – September 2020
Micron is a world leader in innovating memory solutions for an abundance of applications. And, it continues to prove that, receiving several patents in September, 2020. In particular, the Idaho-based company has developed a unique wireless memory system and wireless memory interface.
Memory is usually stored as random access memory (RAM) or flash memory. But, over the past few years we have seen a rise in wireless memory, for close proximity data transfer using wireless power. For example, Near Field Communications (NFC) technology is quickly gaining traction, often used as a barcode-like sticker/image that gives off communication signals. This is used in a number of applications, including wireless payment and advertisement applications.
Micron has developed a system, in which a processor is wirelessly coupled to a memory array. This processor reads data from (or writes data to) the memory array via a wireless communication link (e.g. using an ultra/super/extremely high frequency band). With this wireless communication link, many small devices (with or without local memory) can share data. The memory devices are configured to use communication protocols over licensed or shared frequency spectrum bands, directly (e.g. device-to-device) or indirectly (e.g. via a base station).
However, many existing wireless memory technologies rely on proprietary communications methods and/or proprietary hardware to access data, meaning there is no standard and/or simplistic way to access the technologies. Micron’s wireless memory interface allows for vendor-agnostic access to a wireless memory tag. The interface detects the memory tag via a wireless memory host, and provides a vendor-agnostic command to the wireless memory tag, which allows it to read and/or write data.
For example, a TV may hold a high speed wireless memory tag, which can transmit data to/from a host (e.g. a smartphone). Here, the smartphone could also transmit data to and from a NFC tag (e.g. on a product package). By standardizing the communication interface among a multitude of wireless memory tags, communications may be provided regardless of the wireless memory tag structure and/or specific parameters of the host.
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