Microcontrollers are the smart processing cores for high-growth key sectors such as Internet-of-Things (IoT), consumer electronics, healthcare, security, automotive and aerospace. The future challenge for microcontrollers is not only to store ever more complex program code and increasing amounts of data. In addition, they need to satisfy demanding requirements such as a higher number of write cycles and data retention for many years even when exposed to extreme temperatures. The current industry standard for embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM), eFlash technology, is coping with these requirements only at the expense of increasingly complex manufacturing processes – to the point that it has become the bottleneck for further miniaturization of microcontrollers and systems-on-a-chip. In comparison to the latest generations of standard CMOS technology, eFlash lags by five technology generations.
FMC solves this challenge today by scaling eNVM along with CMOS logic technology.
FMC’s embedded memory technology uses the ferroelectric properties of crystalline hafnium oxide (HfO2). Hafnium oxide – in its amorphous form – is the gate isolator material of every CMOS transistor from the 45nm node down to the 5nm node, and beyond. FMC’s patent-protected technology makes it simple to transform amorphous HfO2 into crystalline, ferroelectric HfO2. This way, every standard CMOS transistor can be turned into a non-volatile memory cell, or a Ferroelectric Field Effect Transistor (FeFET). The key advantages of FeFET are high speed, ultra-low-power, reduced manufacturing cost, extreme temperature stability, complete magnetic immunity, and high radiation resistance. FeFETs can be integrated into CMOS production lines using existing equipment without the need for capital expenditures. FMC has demonstrated memory arrays at 28nm and 22nm, with the potential to scale to even the latest CMOS technology nodes.
FMC was founded in 2016 and is based in Dresden, Germany. FMC team members have been working with ferroelectric HfO2 since 2012. FMC commercializes its patent-protected FeFET technology in partnership with semiconductor foundries. FMCs target customers are fabless IC design companies that supply microcontrollers and systems-on-chip. FeFET memories are ideally suited for smart card controllers, automotive control, IoT applications as well as Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence – both for mobile devices at the network edge and for datacenter processing.
The projects focus is on narrowing down beachhead markets as well as creating an engineering plan and business action to address these markets.
