Investment - Page 6

STT-MRAM developer Avalanche Technology raised $23 million from Thomvest Ventures, Vulcan Capital, Rogers Venture Partners, and VTB Capital. The company also has a substantial debt facility in place with Horizon Technology Finance.

Avalanche say that they are now bringing their Spin-Programmable STT-MRAM (SPMEM) discrete products to Tier-1 OEMS and licensing their embedded solutions (AvRAM) to strategic partners. The company previous financing round was announced in July 2012.

Crocus Technology has secured $21 million in a new financing round. All of Crocus' historical French and international investors participated in the round, including NanoDimension, Innovation Capital, IdInvest Partners, and Rusnano. Founded in 2004, Crocus has raised $194 million to date.

Crocus says that since it began producing MLU-based magnetic sensors in mid-2014, they have over 250 customers. The new capital will help Crocus to deploy its sensor product line in the key target markets: industrial, consumer electronics, automotive and solutions for IoT. Crocus will also strengthen its commercial resources (including finalizing a distribution network in Asia and reinforcing the support team) and develop develop new designs to enrich the product portfolio with integrated sensor and smart sensor applications. Crocus aims to reach breakeven in Q1 2016.

Everspin Technologies announced it has appointed Jeff Winzeler as the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Winzeler joins Everspin from Avnera, a privately held semiconductor company specializing in analog and digital SoCs, and he served as CFO at several public companies.

In January 2015 Everspin closed a $29 million funding round, led by Global Foundries and Western Digital Capital, and the company is ramping up STT-MRAM production, and busy accelerating and delivering perpendicular and Gigabit ST-MRAM to the market. It's possible that Everspin is also gearing up towards an IPO and that's one of the reasons a high-profile CFO is required.

Everspin Technologies announced that it closed a $29 million funding round, led by Global Foundries and Western Digital Capital. Existing investors (New Venture Partners, Lux Capital, Sigma Partners, Epic Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson) also joined in the round.

In October 2014 Everspin entered into a partnership with GlobalFoundries to build fully processed 300mm wafers with Everspin's ST-MRAM technology. In October it was announced that GF acquired a stake in Everspin (this is probably before this recent investment) and also acquired ST-MRAM processing equipment (40-nm).

Everspin Technologies entered into a partnership with GlobalFoundries to build fully processed 300mm wafers with Everspin's ST-MRAM technology, starting with GF's 28-nm and 40-nm low-power CMOS platforms. As part of the agreement, GlobalFoundries invested an undisclosed amount in Everspin, and they already acquired ST-MRAM processing equipment (40-nm).

Everspin hopes that the new agreement will help drive ST-MRAM adoption and will offer higher volume production at lower cost. The company reports that they shipped over 40 million MRAM chips - which represents very fast growth as in August 2013 they reported selling 10 million MRAM chips so they sold almost 30 million chips in just over a year (it took them over 4 years to sell the first 10 million).

Everspin Technologies announced today that they closed a Series B financing, raising $15 million from venture capital firms including New Venture Partners, Sigma Partners, Lux Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Epic Ventures. The money will be used to launch their first ST-MRAM products (hopefully by 2013).

Everspin ST-MRAM chips

Everspin also announced that they sold over 10 million MRAM chips. In the end of 2011 the company said they sold 4 million chips. They actually hoped to sell 5 million chips in 2012 which means that the current rate is actually lower than expected (if they only now reached 10 million chips) - but still this is an impressive milestone for MRAM technology (Everspin is still the only company shipping commercial MRAM chips).

Crocus Technology have completed their Series D round of funding, raising €34 million (about $45 million). The company raised $80 so far (not counting the $300 million from RUSNANO towards a manufacturing fab in Russia). The company hopes to start generating revenue by the end of 2013 and become cashflow break-even by the end of 2014.

Crocus are rather busy. They will use the money to ramp up its manufacturing at Tower Semiconductors (in Israel) while also qualifying its Russian joint venture fab in Moscow. They expect first engineering wafers in the summer.

Samsung Electronics launched a new global research outreach program aimed towards STT-MRAM innovation. The Samsung Global MRAM Innovation (SGMI) is looking for colleges, universities and research labs from all over the world to explore breakthrough and innovative STT-MRAM research.

Samsung invites submissions for novel ideas on STT-MRAM research - and the selected proposals will receive financial support from Samsung. Samsung will give around $70,000 to $150,000 for one year research (which may be extended for up to three years). They may also offer larger funds for exceptional proposals. The deadline for submission is September 28, 2013.

Singulus Technologies and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany announced a $12 million partnership that will involve co-development of MRAM technologyies and processes for Tunnel Magneto Resistance (TMR) materials. Singulus and CNSE aim to deliver a critical technical need required to establish a fully installed, multi-equipment MRAM tool set capable of module and integrated processing for an MRAM development program.

More specifically, they will develop innovative deposition techniques (on 300mm equipment) for TMR materials and material stacks critical for advanced technology nodes. The research will focus on developing techniques to enable improvements in film deposition rates, deposition uniformity, and mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties, as well as advancing TMR processes and applications.

Avalanche Technology announced that it has raised $30 million from existing investors (Vulcan Capital, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures) and also from a new investor, VTB capital. Avalanche hopes that this investment will enable them to bring the first products into the market.

Avalanche will produce STT-MRAM chips based on their proprietary SPMEM (Spin Programmable Memory) technology. SPMEM uses a revolutionary spin current and voltage switching technology that enables "lower write current, smaller cell size and excellent scalability". The first products will use a 65 nm process, but the company says that their technology is scalable to 10 nm or even less.