August 11, 2020 -- Weebit Nano (ASX: WBT), a leading developer of next generation memory technology for the global semiconductor industry, has successfully completed the first stage of the “stabilisation” process, a key milestone on the path to productisation.

The aim of this phase was to verify that Weebit’s production process is repeatable and consistent, to reduce chances for defects and therefore improve the wafer yield.

Conducted at research partner Leti’s development facilities, this first stage of the stabilisation process improved the maturity of Weebit’s silicon oxide ReRAM technology, increasing the cell to cell uniformity, resulting in a higher product yield (percentage of working memory cells). Higher quality technology and process improvements are critical as Weebit prepares to transfer its technology to a production fab.

As part of this technology stabilisation phase, Weebit and Leti also introduced additional improvements which resolved some process sensitivities observed in previous wafers. The measurements show that a much higher level of uniformity was achieved relative to previous lots. In addition, programming conditions were adjusted to optimise cell endurance.

A new integration methodology has been established to ensure future batches maintain an even higher consistent yield within the memory. The second phase of process stabilisation is currently underway, with the objective to analyse and verify batch to batch repeatability.

Coby Hanoch, CEO of Weebit Nano, said, “Stabilisation is a very important milestone as we discuss transferring our technology to a production fab with our partners. I would like to thank the joint Weebit-Leti team for their hard work to achieve these important process and technology improvements during what has been a very challenging operating environment.

“Leti’s fabs were shut down for almost three months, after which we still had to comply with severe restrictions regarding the number of people who could be in the fab at any point in time, and our Israeli team had to support this process remotely given travel restrictions. Despite these challenges, the team managed to minimise the impact to our development schedule by achieving these excellent results in this first phase of stabilisation.”