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.