RRAM News - Page 1

Israel-based RRAM developer Weebit Nano recently announced success in demonstrating a 4Kbit array in 300nm. Weebit now updates that it has successfully demonstrated the reliability of data retention and endurance in its 300 nm 4Kb memory cells. data retention lifetime extrapolation demonstrated the ability to maintain written data for 10 years at above room temperature. In addition the chips maintained their data after 30 minutes at 260 degrees, exceeding the soldering requirements of 15 minutes at that temperatures.

Weebit says that these results successfully conclude the 300 nm 4Kb characterization. Weebit says that the endurance results are significantly higher than the program/erase cycling of existing Flash technology.

Israel-based Weebit Nano was established in 2014 with an aim to commercialize Rice University's SiOx RRAM technology. Weebit is progressing towards it stated goal of producing a 40nm RRAM Silicon Oxide working cell by the end of 2017.

Coby Hanoch was recently appointed as the company's new CEO, and was kind enough to answer a few questions we had. Coby was VP Worldwide sales at Verisity where he was part of the founding team and grew the company to over $100M sales per year. He was also VP Worldwide sales at Jasper. Mr Hanoch holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Design from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Q: Coby, you recently joined Weebit as a CEO. What made you excited about Weebit's technology and business?

I believe Weebit’s technology has great potential, especially considering the fact that it is based on standard materials and tools, so once we finish the development we should be able to move more easily into production than other emerging memory technologies I have come across. In addition, and probably more important than the technology, a key driver to the success of a company is the team, and I was very impressed by Weebit’s team and the atmosphere in the company.

Australia-based RRAM developer 4DS Memory announced that it has signed an agreement with Belgium-based imec to develop a transferable manufacturing process for its technology. As part of the agreement the two parties will demonstrate the process with a 1Mbit test chip.

In October 2016 4DS raised $3 million USD to fund its ongoing ReRAM development activities. In October 2016 4DS also announced the fabrication of a working 40nm RRAM memory cell in collaboration with HGST, a subsidiary of Western Digital.

Weebit Nano announced that it has managed to produce a 4Kb array on 300 nm cells, with 100% yield on selected arrays. Weebit says that this result validates its technology and that this demonstration was the final significant step towards the next goal for the company - a 40nm RRAM Silicon Oxide working cell by the end of 2017.

Preliminary speed tests of Weebit's technology showed that write speeds could be 100 to 1000 times faster than traditional 3D Flash technology while using significantly lower energy.

Strategic Elements announced that it has successfully produced a large-scale batch of its Nanocube Memory Ink with around 400 times the volume of previous batches. Previously the researchers were only able to produces batches in the milliliter range, but now a new method was developed to produces batches of Nanocube Ink in the liter scale.

Strategic Elements also updates that it is initiating a new program with the Finnish VTT Technical Research Centre to analyse and optimise the memory ink film thickness and device operation and performance. The company is also negotiating a new agreement with UNSW that will potentially include trial depositions of the Nanocube Ink on the advanced slot die printing equipment recently acquired by UNSW.

Adesto Technologies announced that Teledyne HiRel Electronics will use Adesto's resistive RAM (CBRAM) memory technology for use in its high-performance, high-reliability semiconductor solutions. Teledyne already offers Adesto's CBRAM chips in 32KB, 64KB, 238KB and 512 KB densities. The company says that these chips offer 100K write cycle endurance and data retention of greater than 40 years at 125°C.

Teledyne HiRel Electronics markets its products into civil aerospace, industrial, medical, defense, scientific and space applications, and the company says that the CBRAM memory offers unique advantages to high-reliability applications as it is highly efficient and resistant to the effects of radiation.

Crossbar announced a partnership with Mobiveil, a supplier of silicon IP, platforms and IP-enabled design services to apply Mobiveil complete PCIe to NVMe set of solid state drive (SSD) IP to support Crossbar's RRAM IP blocks.

Mobiveil and Cross will work together on a new RRAM-based design from Mobiveil’s complete PCIe-to-NVMe set of SSD IP with Crossbar’s RRAM enabling six-million 512B IOPS below 10us latency. Crossbar says that the performance gain will enable RRAM-based SSDs to significantly speed up access to frequently requested information in large data centers.