Unity Semiconductor announced on January 21 that it has entered into a joint development agreement with Micron Technology to develop CMOx, a new solution for non-volatile solid state memory to replace NAND.
Unity said that for the past eight years, the company has been developing CMOx, a breakthrough technology that was announced in May 2009. The deal with Micron is a springboard for its plans to commercialize CMOx, the company noted. The joint development program is anticipated to be completed within the next two years.
CMOx is designed to scale beyond the limitations of the legacy transistor technology currently used in NAND flash memory.
"Our joint development program with Micron is an important milestone as we look to scale Unity's unique multi-dimensional memory technology, fabricating it in small geometry, multi-layer cross-point arrays," said David Eggleston, CEO of Unity. "Unity's CMOx memory technology will offer significant scaling, density, reliability and cost benefits."
"CMOx technology operates based on an entirely different physics mechanism from other memories, and offers promise as an emerging cross-point memory technology. Micron is pleased to add the Unity CMOx technology to our emerging memory development programs," said Scott DeBoer, Micron VP of Process Research & Development.
Founded in 2002, Unity is striving to develop and produce NAND flash successor technologies and products.
Originally focusing on DRAM and NAND memory, Micron has acquired Numonyx allowing it to provide a complete flash portfolio by adding NOR, MCP and phase-change memory (PCM) product lines.