Technology demonstrated at a capacity that addresses the embedded memory market when commercialised

Weebit Nano (ASX: WBT), the Israel-based semiconductor company seeking to develop and commercialise the next generation of memory technology, today announced it has achieved the significant milestone of demonstrating a 1Mb (1 Megabit > 1 million bits) capacity ReRAM array at 40nm using silicon oxide (SiOx). This milestone was achieved on schedule as committed to by the company two years ago.

Weebit Nano’s ReRAM technology is now at the capacity of memory larger than what is currently being used across most of the embedded non-volatile memory (NVM) market, which is the first market segment the company is targeting. This market is currently estimated to be worth over US$25 billion [1], with potential for significant growth, and includes various applications such as Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technology. In addition, with the introduction of faster and more energy-efficient memories like ReRAM, this market will soon expand to also be a cornerstone of machine learning and artificial intelligence.   

Commenting on the milestone, Coby Hanoch, CEO of Weebit Nano, said: “We are very excited and proud to have reached this very important milestone. Our technology will be able to address the vast majority of the non-volatile memory demand in embedded memory applications, so we can now proceed to the next step of preparing for productisation. We have already held initial discussions with various leading global companies in the consumer and memory domains. With the achievement of this globally significant milestone we now intend to progress these discussions.

“Weebit Nano’s SiOx ReRAM technology can be manufactured using existing processes with the existing equipment in production lines, as opposed to other technologies that use non-standard materials. Consequently, you can see why we believe we have significant advantages to harnessing this massive market opportunity. Using standard materials has enabled us to achieve this milestone significantly quicker than any competitive ReRAM technology”, added Mr Hanoch.

The 1Mb initial tests, conducted in CEA/Leti facilities in Grenoble, France, demonstrated the capability of addressing and programming nearly all of the memory cells. These are very impressive results for a first batch, and are especially encouraging as they were achieved without using performance improvement techniques such as redundancy, which are commonly used in the memory industry to achieve programmability of 100 per cent of the array cells.

Weebit Nano recently announced it has extended its agreement with Leti to further develop and optimise its ReRAM memory technology. This will allow the acceleration of the optimisation process that will focus on improving the quality of the 1Mb array, bringing the technology to the level needed to move to a production level fab (where silicon components are manufactured).