Geneva, Switzerland and Rochester Hills, MI, Apr. 22, 2009 – Numonyx B.V. and Ovonyx, Inc. today announced that they have entered into a license agreement for memory products under Ovonyx’ patents and intellectual property relating to phase change memory (PCM) technology. As flash memory and DRAM both encounter increasing scaling challenges in the face of shrinking chip geometries, PCM is widely considered a leading alternative for emerging generations of commercial, high-volume semiconductor memory.
“While PCM represents a significant opportunity to extend the benefits of non-volatile memory to segments currently served by flash memory, it also opens new opportunities in areas current memory technologies aren’t able to go.” said Ed Doller, chief technology officer at Numonyx. “We are very optimistic about its future and believe that with the support from Ovonyx we will continue to expand the capabilities of PCM technology.”
“Numonyx is a leading nonvolatile memory solutions provider. They have already demonstrated substantial technical progress in pioneering development of commercial phase-change memory technology,” said Tyler Lowrey, President & CEO of Ovonyx. “Ovonyx has had very productive relationships with both of Numonyx parent companies, Intel and ST Microelectronics, and we look forward to working with Numonyx with their ramp to commercialization of PCM nonvolatile memory products.”
About Phase Change Memory Technology
Ovonyx and its largest shareholder, Energy Conversion Devices, invented and pioneered the development of PCM technology, thereby gaining a fundamental understanding of PCM operation, including PCM devices, materials, processing, design, modelling, and performance. Ovonyx PCM technology uses a reversible phase-change memory process that provides for high performance, dense, array-addressed semiconductor memory technology that can be used as cost effective Flash and DRAM device replacements, as well as in embedded applications such as microcontrollers and reconfigurable MOS logic.
About Ovonyx
Ovonyx was formed with the charter to commercialize its proprietary phase-change semiconductor memory technology originally invented by S. R. Ovshinsky at Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. Ovonyx nonvolatile PCM technology offers significantly faster write and erase speeds through its capability for byte-write in either direction (avoiding the need to erase a block to write a bit), higher cycling endurance, and better scaling performance with new generations of photolithography than conventional Flash or DRAM memory. Relative to DRAM, PCM eliminates the refresh power by retaining its memory without power. PCM also has the advantage of a simple fabrication process that allows the design of semiconductor chips with embedded nonvolatile memory using only a few additional mask steps. Ovonyx is pursuing commercialization of its array-addressed memory systems through licenses and joint development programs with semiconductor manufacturers including Numonyx, BAE Systems, Intel, ST Microelectronics, Elpida Memory, Samsung Electronics, and Hynix Semiconductor. For more information, please visit www.ovonyx.com.
About Numonyx
Numonyx provides a full complement of integrated NOR, NAND, RAM and Phase Change non-volatile memory technologies and products to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of customers in the cellular, data and embedded markets. Numonyx is dedicated to providing high density, low power memory technologies and packaging solutions to a global base of customers. Additional information about Numonyx is available at www.numonyx.com
For further information please contact:
Numonyx
Mark Miller
Email: mark.miller@numonyx.com
Tel: 916 380 2090
Fax: 916 377 3009
Ovonyx, Inc.
Karen Connolly
Email: kconnolly@ovonyx.com
Tel: 248.842.6096
Fax: 248.659.1500