The fabless developer and supplier of nonvolatile FRAM (ferroelectric random access memory) and integrated semiconductor products announced on Monday that one of its customers has requested payment for losses resulting from in-field failures of one of its memory products. Ramtron did not identify the customer or state which of its memory products was involved in the failures.

This week’s tight-lipped statement from Ramtron follows a product failure statement from Nvidia Corp on July 2 that similarly lacked detail. At that time, the company estimated a one-time $150 million to $200 million charge after loosely disclosing that “certain” notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a “certain die/packaging material set” are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. 
 
Ramtron said it is working with its customer to try to determine the total losses the customer might sustain, and then will determine its own charge.

Ramtron further said it has been working closely with its manufacturing supplier and the customer to identify the root cause of the failures.

“Based on its investigation to date and an evaluation of the failed devices, Ramtron has concluded that a manufacturing process defect in the Ramtron device combined with a unique use within the customer’s end product resulted in the device failures,” the Colorado Springs-based company said in a statement Monday.

Withholding specific details, Ramtron continued to state that it and its unidentified manufacturing supplier have taken corrective actions to satisfy the customer’s ongoing product delivery requirements.

Ramtron claimed it has identified the specific lots that included the devices that failed, and has verified that versions of the same device that are currently shipping are not experiencing failure from this manufacturing process defect. Ramtron did not disclose the lot numbers.

By: DocMemory
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