RRAM production - Page 2

Israel-based RRAM developer Weebit Nano Announced that it secured $3.1 million in a combined placement and entitlement offer. The company has also announced that it is progressing in its project to develop a customized ReRAM memory module for its South Korean customer - and aims to to deliver the module in mid-2020.

Weebit says that it aims to transfer its facilities to production capacity by the end of 2020.

Adesto, Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC) and Crocus Nano Electronics (CNE) announced a collaboration to develop new RFID and microcontrollers products based on Adesto's RRAM memory technology (CBRAM).

The three companies say that the combination of RRAM with HLMC's 55nm ultra-low-power front-end process and CNE's 300 mm back-end processing will enable cost-effective embedded and standalone RRAM devices.

Earlier this year, Weebit Nano announced that it aims to produce 40nm working SiOx RRAM cell samples by the end of 2017, and the company today announced that it achieved that milestone - one month ahead of schedule.

Weebit further reports that measurements performed on the 40nm memory cells on various wafers verified the ability of Weebit Nano SiOx ReRAM cells to maintain its memory behaviour in accordance with previous experiments performed on 300nm cells.

In March 2016 Crossbar announced its strategic partnership with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to co-develop and produce RRAM technologies. In January 2017 Crossbar announced that it started sampling RRAM chips.

In an interesting interview with Electronic Design, Crossbar's Vice President of Strategic Marketing & Business Development, Sylvain Dubois, discloses that Crossbar has started to ramp up production, and has signed a dozen agreements to license its technology to MCU/SoC companies. Crossbar's current developments are targeting embedded ReRAM IPs integrated in MCUs/SoCs for IoT, consumer electronics, artificial intelligence, and industrial applications.

According to reports, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is aiming to start producing embedded RRAM chips in 2019 using a 22 nm process. This will be initial "risk production" to gauge market reception.

TSMC also aims to start embedded MRAM chip production in 2018.

Panasonic announced a new partnership with Taiwan-based United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) to co-develop and produce RRAM devices. The two companies aim to use a 40nm process to produce RRAM chips that consume one-seventh the power of today's NAND flash memory.

Panasonic will be in charge of designing the chips, and the two companies will co-develop the microfabrication technologies. Actual production will be done at UMC. The two companies plan to start shipping samples in 2018 and mass produce RRAM chips by 2019. The first RRAM devices will be embedded in microcontrollers.

In March 2016 Crossbar announced its strategic partnership with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to co-develop and produce RRAM technologies. Crossbar now says it started to sample embedded RRAM chips from SMIC.

SMIC, China's largest semiconductor foundry, is using a 40nm process, and Crossbar says that it plans for a 28nm process - and even 10nm or lower down the road. The chip design uses non-conductive amorphous silicon (a-SI) technology. Crossbar's chips can either use a 1T1R architecture (1 transistor per RRAM, which offers the lowest latency and so useful for embedded memory and caching) or 1TnR (which uses up to 2,000 cells per transistor using a crossbar scheme - which makes for higher density chips useful for storage).

Fujitsu Semiconductor launched its first RRAM chip, the 4Mb MB85AS4MT. Fujitsu co-developed this Chip with Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions, and the company says that this is the world's largest density mass-produced RRAM product.

The MB85AS4MT offers an SPI-interface and operates with a wide range of power supply voltage, from 1.65V to 3.6V. It features an extremely small average current in read operations of 0.2mA at a maximum operating frequency of 5MHz. Fujitsu says it is aimed for battery operated wearable devices and medical devices such as hearing aids and IoT devices such as meters and sensors.

Western Digital announced that its 3D RRAM development is "finished" (this developed started by SanDisk, which is now owned by WD). WD's current plan is to release memory products based on 3D RRAM in 12-24 months - in the same fab that produces flash (NAND) memory.

Western Digital will at first aim to use RRAM in "specialized" SCM memory devices, but the plan is to scale up RRAM to eventually (2020?) become a "Universal Memory".

Crossbar announced a strategic partnership with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) - China's largest semiconductor foundry. The two companies agreed to co-develop and produce RRAM technologies.

Crossbar says that as the company enters the licensing phase, it is honored to collaborate with SMIC - which is a major stepping stone towards its RRAM technology commercialization.