IN Brief:
- Teledyne HiRel will add Everspin’s 256Mb PERSYST STT-MRAM to its aerospace and defence memory portfolio.
- Target applications include avionics, VPX computers, radar, electronic warfare, satellites, and autonomous platforms.
- Teledyne will provide screening, qualification documentation, procurement support, and obsolescence management, with availability targeted for Q4 2026.
Everspin Technologies and Teledyne HiRel Semiconductors have formed a partnership to bring higher-density magnetoresistive memory into aerospace and defence electronics, beginning with Everspin’s 256Mb PERSYST spin-transfer torque MRAM.
Teledyne HiRel will add the device to its high-reliability memory portfolio and provide screening, qualification documentation, procurement support, and obsolescence management for military and aerospace customers. The agreement also covers 64Mb and 128Mb PERSYST devices, while customer availability for the 256Mb version is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.
Target applications include avionics, VPX and single-board computers, radar and electronic-warfare payloads, satellite electronics, and autonomous systems. These are markets in which component lifecycle, qualification evidence, and long-term supply can be as important as raw performance because the electronics may remain in service for years after the original design has been frozen.
MRAM stores data using magnetic states rather than retaining information as electrical charge in the same way as conventional flash memory. Everspin’s STT-MRAM combines non-volatility with fast read and write access, allowing information to remain available after power is removed without relying on a battery-backed volatile memory arrangement.
That behaviour can simplify several functions inside defence electronics. Systems often need to preserve configuration information, event logs, security data, or boot code through a power interruption and then recover quickly when power returns. Alternative architectures can use flash, SRAM backed by batteries or capacitors, or combinations of several memory types, but each adds constraints around endurance, erase cycles, backup power, wear management, or recovery time.
PERSYST uses an xSPI interface intended to provide a relatively low-pin-count route into embedded designs. The family is being developed across several densities, allowing engineers to select capacity without changing the wider memory concept. Everspin has already moved lower-density high-reliability devices through qualification while the 256Mb product extends the amount of persistent storage available within the same broad architecture.
The defence challenge is not simply whether the part works on a laboratory board. Aerospace, radar, and electronic-warfare programmes have strict requirements around temperature range, electrical behaviour, screening, documentation, and traceability, while component changes can trigger requalification work that is expensive once a platform is already in service.
Teledyne HiRel’s role addresses that adoption barrier. Its contribution is not to redesign the memory cell but to package the device within a support model familiar to high-reliability customers, including screening flows, qualification records, controlled procurement, and management of future obsolescence risks.
Obsolescence is particularly difficult in defence electronics because the commercial semiconductor market moves faster than many military platforms. A memory selected during system development may need to remain available through production, spares provisioning, upgrades, and repairs long after mainstream commercial demand has shifted to another generation.
A component with attractive electrical specifications can therefore be a poor choice if its supply path is uncertain. Teledyne’s involvement gives programme engineers another mechanism for managing that risk while Everspin concentrates on the underlying MRAM technology.
The partnership follows early application work for the PERSYST family. Everspin announced in July that Astro Digital had selected a 64Mb device as primary fail-safe boot memory for a geostationary satellite bus. That is a different product and programme from the Teledyne agreement, but it shows the memory family being evaluated for mission-critical aerospace functions where data retention after power interruption is required.
Radar and electronic-warfare systems create different workloads. They can update configuration and operational data frequently and may need predictable write behaviour while handling high data rates elsewhere in the system. Persistent memory can support rapid restart and retention of selected state information, although overall system resilience still depends on processors, power architecture, software, and communications.
Autonomous platforms raise a similar requirement. An aircraft or ground vehicle that loses power temporarily may need to restore configuration or mission information quickly when systems restart, particularly when access to an external control station is intermittent or deliberately disrupted.
No defence platform order has been announced under the Everspin-Teledyne partnership, and the Q4 target refers to customer availability rather than operational deployment. The programme is therefore an enabling supply and qualification arrangement rather than a military acquisition.
Its industrial value lies in combining a newer memory technology with the documentation and lifecycle structure expected by aerospace and defence customers. If that route works, PERSYST devices will disappear inside larger systems where their value becomes apparent mainly when equipment has to recover from a power interruption, tolerate repeated writes, or remain supportable long after the original electronics were designed.
