The partnership extends SureCore’s expertise in optimising on-chip memory, delivering tailored solutions using a vital memory compiler for ReRAM’s commercial success.
In the realm of semiconductor technology, SureCore and Intrinsic have officially unveiled their collaborative venture aimed at expediting the time to market for Intrinsic’s cutting-edge Resistive Random-access Memory (ReRAM) technology. This strategic partnership marks a significant step forward for Intrinsic’s ReRAM, which seeks to address the challenges faced by System-on-Chip (SoC) developers in need of an embedded non-volatile storage solution for 22nm and smaller nodes, especially as traditional flash memory becomes less viable. Intrinsic’s ReRAM technology offers a multitude of compelling advantages, including flash-like density combined with lightning-fast SRAM access times, with a wide range of applications set to benefit across various sectors, including automotive, medical, wearables, artificial intelligence (AI), edge AI, and the AI of Things (AIoT).
For many years, embedded flash memory has been the go-to non-volatile storage solution, particularly within the microcontroller space. It facilitated the delivery of products to customers with firmware updates through over-the-air downloads, ensuring swift bug fixes and feature enhancements. However, as semiconductor technology continues to advance in line with Moore’s Law, flash memory scaling beyond 28nm has become increasingly challenging, necessitating the exploration of alternative memory technologies. This shift in the landscape is of particular interest to the automotive industry, where the drive towards greater autonomy demands higher processing power and significantly more embedded memory.
ReRAM Solution Reshapes Microcontroller Development Landscape
With the limitations of flash memory becoming evident, developers of advanced microcontrollers face a formidable challenge. The impracticality of integrating flash and logic on the same chip pushes vendors towards a two-chip solution, which could be better from a power efficiency perspective. Intrinsic aims to tackle this dilemma by providing a non-volatile memory solution that seamlessly integrates with advanced process nodes, reducing power consumption and eliminating potential data bandwidth bottlenecks and latency associated with off-chip flash memory. Intrinsic’s technology boasts data read speeds up to 100 times faster and write speeds up to 1,000 times faster than existing solutions, all while being fabricated using standard processing techniques at the back end of the line, resulting in a less complex and cost-effective ReRAM solution. Its flash-like density and high-temperature resilience add to its allure.
Paul Wells, SureCore CEO, praised Intrinsic’s groundbreaking memory tech, enabling developers to integrate scalable, non-volatile memory seamlessly. SureCore’s tools and techniques have been silicon-proven and optimised over many years to deliver memories with the lowest possible power consumption and highest density. They are excited to harness these benefits in developing our ReRAM products. Whether in microcontrollers or evolving AI architectures, Intrinsic ReRAM promises higher performance within lower-power envelopes than those achievable with off-chip flash memory.
