NVE Corporation was founded in 1989 in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Originally called Nonvolatile Electronics, the company changed its name to NVE Corporation after going public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2000; their symbol is NVEC. The word "nonvolatile" refers to memory that retains information after a power source is removed. Since its founding, NVEC has received more than $50 million in government research contracts, particularly for research into nonvolatile memory called MRAM, or magnetoresistive random access memory. These contracts have helped NVEC develop an intellectual property portfolio and accumulate more than 50 patents covering spintronics and MRAM technology. The company has recently reduced its reliance on contract research and has grown tremendously through product sales, averaging 25% revenue growth over the past three years. The company develops and sells products that use "spintronics," a nanotechnology that relies on electron spinning rather than electron charging to collect, store and send information. NVE Corp. manufactures high-performance sensors and couplers used to acquire and transmit data. Additionally, they license their MRAM technology to various companies including Avago Technologies, Honeywell, Cypress Semiconductor Company, and, until 2006, Motorola. In fiscal 2008, product sales accounted for 85 percent of revenue and research and development contracts accounted for 15 percent. They currently have 50 employees and generate sales in over 75 countries. The electronics industry relies heavily on devices that capture, store and transmit data. NVE Corp's spintronics technology focuses on magnetic sensors, couplers and memory that perform these tasks in the middle of paper without booting up, allowing the user to simply press a button and the computer will spin it up exactly as it did when it was turned off. Mobile devices will benefit from MRAM as it requires less power, allowing for much longer uses on a single charge. Additionally, MRAM's durability and low power consumption make it ideal for defense and aerospace technologies, as well as primary data storage technology for satellites. NVE Corp. holds patents on advanced MRAM designs that include vertical transport MRAM, thermal magnetic MRAM, and rotational moment. transfer MRAM. These advanced designs are intended to address current MRAM technology hurdles; mainly, reducing manufacturing costs and increasing memory density. Due to MRAM's higher manufacturing costs and larger relative size compared to DRAM and Flash RAM, they are slowly being integrated into electronic devices.