Weebit Nano broadens its technology portfolio to further bolster its ReRAM capability and expand commercialisation opportunities

New agreement with CEA-Leti extends partnership scope with enhanced technologies and IP, resulting in improved ReRAM performance

August 31, 2021 – Weebit Nano Limited (ASX: WBT), a leading developer of next-generation memory technologies for the global semiconductor industry, has expanded its ongoing strategic development partnership with French research institute CEA-Leti (www.leti-cea.com) to further enhance its ReRAM technologies and support its commercialisation efforts.

The new agreement expands the intellectual property (IP) co-operation between the two companies, leveraging CEA-Leti’s broad investment in memory research for over 10 years and covering the IP jointly developed by Weebit and CEA-Leti. As part of the agreement, Weebit will incorporate additional IP licensed from CEA-Leti into its ReRAM offerings, further improving its technical parameters such as endurance, retention and robustness. This will position Weebit’s ground-breaking technology at the forefront of the Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) industry and broaden its commercialisation opportunities in industries such as automotive, which require high-temperature performance.

Coby Hanoch, CEO of Weebit Nano, said: “Our collaboration with CEA-Leti has been very successful to-date, enabling us to advance development of our industry-leading ReRAM to the point that it is highly competitive and ready for transfer to a production fab.

“CEA-Leti has been developing advanced memory technologies such as ReRAM cells and OTS back-end selectors for more than a decade and has a deep understanding in this domain. We are now further leveraging this know-how, resulting in even more robust and resilient memory arrays for the benefit of our production customers and partners. Our new agreement with CEA-Leti underpins continued research and development – which is essential within the ever-evolving semiconductor industry – while supporting key commercialisation steps.”

Olivier Faynot, Head of Silicon Components Division at CEA-Leti, said: “Development of reliable and cost-effective resistive memory technology is an important element of CEA-Leti’s advanced non-volatile memory initiatives, and as such, Weebit is a key strategic development partner for us. The ReRAM technology we started developed and continue developing with Weebit is highly efficient and extremely robust, and is a great fit for various embedded applications, discrete memory chips, and ultimately as a solution for neuromorphic computing. By expanding our relationship with Weebit, we are laying the groundwork for exciting new memory solutions for the industry.”

The integration of CEA-Leti’s additional IP will further enhance Weebit’s ReRAM technology. Tests show an order of magnitude improvement in array-level endurance, and a 2x increase in data retention at the same conditions compared to previous results. In addition, the technology will make it possible for Weebit to address new high-volume markets such as automotive and smart cards by enabling high-temperature reliability up to 175oC and high-temperature compatibility for wafer level packaging.

About Weebit Nano

Weebit Nano Ltd. is a leading developer of next-generation semiconductor memory technology. The company’s ground-breaking Resistive RAM (ReRAM) addresses the growing need for significantly higher performance and lower power memory solutions in a range of new electronic products such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smartphones, robotics, autonomous vehicles, 5G communications and artificial intelligence. Weebit’s ReRAM allows semiconductor memory elements to be significantly faster, less expensive, more reliable and more energy efficient than those using existing Flash memory solutions. Because it is based on fab-friendly materials, the technology can be quickly and easily integrated with existing flows and processes, without the need for special equipment or large investments. See: www.weebit-nano.com