Rambus Cooperate with Unity Semiconductor

Published:2012/2/7 0:23:00 Author:Phyllis From:SeekIC

Rambus Inc. has announced to buy memory from Unity Semiconductor Corp, reaching a sum of $35 million in cash. Founded in 2002, Unity Semiconductor was concentrate on developing metal oxide based cross-point two-terminal non-volatile memory cell named as CMOx with plans to enter the market with a terabit memory.

Metal-oxide, or some other resistive memory, has the potential to achieve higher density, faster performance, lower manufacturing costs and greater data reliability than NAND flash memory. This technology is being worked on by many companies including Samsung, Hynix, Elpida and others.

Unity has taken a long time to come to market. In 2009, it announced that it had raised $22 million but in 2011 Unity was reportedly rescued from financial hardship by a strategic investment from Micron Technology Inc. At about the same time Unity was rumored to have changed from a product business model to one based on the licensing of intellectual property.

This would make for a good fit with Rambus. Rambus is a technology licensor itself and it is not expected that the company will compete in the memory chip business directly but plans to license Unity patents to others that wish to do so.

The Unity team members have joined Rambus to continue developing innovations and solutions for next-generation non-volatile memory. Rambus believed that with the addition of Unity they can develop non-volatile memory solutions that will advance semiconductor scaling beyond the limits of today’s NAND technology.

Unity said Rambus provides the perfect environment for them to continue the technology development of non-volatile memory cells and architectures, and the company’s comprehensive set of design, process and device solutions will complement Rambus’ existing strong technology portfolio and system capabilities.

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