FERAM

FERAM – Ferro-Electric Random Access Memory. FERAM is a type of non-volatile memory used in smart cards and some portable devices. Compared to Flash, it offers many more read/write cycles before failure, much faster writing and lower power consumption. FERAM chips are structured much like ordinary DRAM, but use a ferroelectric material in place of the dielectric to achieve their unique features. FERAM can use a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ferroelectric, but the technology suffers from low storage densities and high cost: hence its use mainly in low-capacity low-power devices requiring durability, like smartcards.