Energy efficient storage candidate ULTRARAM moves to production

Lancaster University spinout firm Quinas has sealed £1.1 million ($1.42 million) in new project funding from a UK government investment vehicle, to coordinate the first step towards volume production of the universal computer memory ULTRARAM.

ULTRARAM was invented by Lancaster University physics professor Manus Hayne, and combines the non-volatility of data storage memory, like flash, with the “speed, energy-efficiency, and endurance” of “working memory” like DRAM, Lancaster University said. It is seen as a power-saving and carbon-reducing technology.

Blocks & Files last reported on Hayne’s efforts in April, 2023, and the ULTRARAM technology, which has previously been patented in the US, is now moving to commercialization with the establishment of Quinas – not the Portuguese beer brand.

ULTRARAM exploits quantum resonant tunnelling to achieve its properties and is implemented in compound semiconductors that are used in photonic devices such as LEDs, laser diodes and infrared detectors, but not in digital electronics, which is the preserve of silicon.

The investment cash is coming from Innovate UK, with the project also involving global semiconductor company IQE, Lancaster University, and Cardiff University. This latest award takes total grant funding for ULTRARAM to £4 million ($5.17 million).

Most of the funding for the new one-year project will be spent at IQE, which will scale up manufacturing of the compound semiconductor layers gallium antimonide (GaSb) and aluminium antimonide (AlSb) at its Cardiff, South Wales facility.

Top3 Quinas execs

Professor Hayne, who is the Lancaster University team lead, and co-founder and chief scientific officer at Quinas, said: “IQE has committed to developing the first part of ULTRARAM mass production, with it representing a tremendous economic opportunity for the UK. The efficiencies it could bring to computing at all scales has the potential for huge energy savings and carbon emission reduction.”

“We are supporting our spin-out Quinas on its journey to an industrial process suitable for a semiconductor foundry fab,” added Jessica Wenmouth, Lancaster University head of research commercialization.

“Such collaborations are crucial for bringing new products to market and driving significant investment into the UK for emerging technologies, enhancing our national and global standing in cutting-edge fields.”

The goal of the project to industrialize the process involves scaling up ULTRARAM wafer diameters from 75mm (3-inches) at Lancaster to 150mm (6-inches) at IQE. This in intended to be achieved using the mainstream production technique of metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE), also called metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD), rather than molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), which is typically used at universities.

Hayne added: “Lancaster will do some initial MBE epitaxy as a control/template for the industrial growth. Our key role will be to characterise the antimonide material grown at IQE, and once sufficient quality is confirmed, we will fabricate and test ULTRARAM memory on small areas of the wafers from IQE.”

In parallel with this, Lancaster will continue to work on ULTRARAM scaling, by reducing the size of individual devices, and making larger and larger arrays. Once devices are small enough and arrays are large enough, the following stage will be to demonstrate fabrication on a complete 200mm (8-inches) wafer, and then to translate the process to an industrial one, suitable for a semiconductor foundry fab.

Dr Peter Hodgson, who is the overall project leader, and co-founder and chief technical officer at Quinas, said: “A memory combining non-volatility with fast, energy-efficient write and erase capabilities has previously been considered unattainable. ULTRARAM’s ability to switch between a highly resistive state and a highly conductive state is the key to its unique properties.”

ULTRARAM’s energy efficiency is reportedly impressive. It is said to have a switching energy per unit area that is 100 times lower than DRAM, 1,000 times lower than flash, and over 10,000 times lower than “other emerging memories”. Its ultra-low energy credentials are further enhanced by its non-destructive read and non-volatility, which removes the need for refresh.

AIM-listed IQE is headquartered in Cardiff and has eight manufacturing sites across the UK, the US and Taiwan.