Weebit Nano Ltd (ASX:WBT) has created the industry’s first commercial integration of an oxide-based ReRAM (OxRAM) cell with an ovonic threshold switching (OTS) selector, a critical step in the company’s commercialisation path for the discrete (standalone) memory market.
This is an important step towards broadening Weebit’s target market beyond embedded non-volatile memory (NVM) to include stand-alone memory technology and will enable the implementation of 3D memory stacking and crossbar architectures in future developments.
Weebit and its development partner CEA-Leti achieved this key milestone three months ahead of Weebit’s previously announced schedule.
Broad range of opportunities
Weebit CEO Coby Hanoch said: “This achievement demonstrates our commitment to addressing the discrete memory market as part of our mid-term strategy.
“We see a broad range of opportunities for discrete ReRAM, from NOR flash to storage class memory, in a range of segments.
“Given our 2024 target for a discrete solution, we anticipate that other opportunities will arise as well.
“We will continue to share our progress in meeting this mid-term goal, while we continue our near-term focus on the embedded memory module where we are making good progress.”
Enabling optimised cell access
A selector is a key element of a memory chip, enabling optimised cell access within a memory array and it assists in isolating memory cells so only the specific cells that should be accessed are, and all the other cells are not impacted.
The company has been able to achieve the industry’s first commercial integration of OTS selector with oxide-based ReRAM.
OTS is an ideal selector technology for discrete ReRAM chips as it enables the smallest ReRAM bit cell as well as excellent endurance, low energy consumption, and high switching speed.
CEA-Leti senior scientist Gabriel Molas said “Creation of an OTS selector is quite a complex endeavour given the concurrent requirements to achieve high endurance, reduce variability, and maintain characteristics at high-temperature operation.
“As such, this selector is based on several years of research by a dedicated team.
“We’re delighted to have worked with Weebit to achieve this milestone for its ReRAM technology more quickly than anticipated, and we look forward to continuing our joint R&D work with Weebit on further innovations.”