The National SoC Program, which is funded by the Taiwan government, is currently in the second phase of development. The authority will invest NT$2.2 billion to strengthen deployment of radio frequency (RF), mixed-signal and related intellectual property (IP) platforms. Development for MRAM, sub-90 and embedded processes are also some of the key focus in phase two.
Revenues during the second quarter of fiscal 2007 were $5.1 million, a decrease of 20% from $6.4 million reported in the same period last year, and a decrease of 22% sequentially from the $6.6 million recorded for the first quarter of fiscal 2007.
Quarterly shipments included an advanced etch system for the manufacturing of MRAM devices to the well-funded European start-up, Crocus Technologies SA of Grenoble, France, along with several 900 and 980 series etch tools to companies in Japan, Europe and the United States.
ECD Ovonics' Ovonyx, Inc. joint venture licensees continue to make substantial progress toward commercialization. For example, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced prototypes of its next generation NOR flash, which is based on OUM technology, indicating that commercial products are expected to be available in 2008. Intel Corporation, as part of a joint venture with STMicroelectronics, also announced that it had produced prototypes of flash products based on OUM technology.Â
IBM is pursuing research in three major areas. It seeks chip-based alternatives to drives with active programs in phase-change RAM and MRAM. It is pushing the frontiers in tape storage, which it expects will have a long life in archival systems. And it is developing software to bring more computing functions to storage arrays.
IBM researchers hope to find a semiconductor memory to replace flash and disks. It will need to have a small cell, low power budget, low cost, 100Mbps transfer rates, support for 1012 read/write cycles and a 10-year life cycle. They believe phase-change RAM holds the most promise.
