Magnetics Business & Technology - March/April 2022 - 24

INDUSTRY NEWS
Antaios Gears Up to Move the Mark on Spintronic Magnetic Memory
SOT-MRAM is the latest generation of magneto-resistance random
access memory, the company says. Unlike its predecessor
Spin Transfer Torque (STT) MRAM though, SOT-MRAM does
not require passing of a high current through the magnetic device
during the write operation, with the writing done by a current
flowing through an adjacent metal line.
SOT switching is based on the electron spin-orbit interaction
which is a relativistic effect of a charge (electron) moving at high
speed through an electric field from the crystalline lattice. Due
to Lorentz transformation, the electrons experience an effective
magnetic field, which splits the trajectories of electrons with opposite
spins.
Bankrolled with a fresh influx of $11 million in venture capital,
French spintronics company Antaios is setting out to accelerate
innovation and develop new strategic partnerships in its quest to
commercialize its spin-orbit torque magneto-resistance random
access memory (SOT-MRAM) technology. With a unique set of
attributes, SOT-MRAM has the potential to be deployed in almost
every chip, becoming a candidate for the long-awaited universal
embedded memory.
Jean Pierre
Nozieres,
founder and CEO
of Antaios
" This funding is a key milestone for Antaios,
asserting the value of our technology and
the industry's interest for SOT as the nextgeneration
MRAM, which solves the limitations
of its current implementations. We are
proud to have attracted a blend of financial
and corporate investors, bringing not only
financial support, but also business outreach
and savviness. We look forward to engaging
with key ecosystem partners to bring the
technology to the market, " said Jean Pierre
Nozieres, founder and CEO.
The new funding came from technology funds focused on
identifying and fostering promising, fast-growth, early-stage
technology companies. It is led by French venture capital firms
Innovacom and Sofimac Innovation, together with Silicon Valleybased
Applied Ventures, LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied
Materials, Inc. Additional financing also comes from Bpifrance, a
French public Investment Bank, and other bank partners.
By enabling simultaneously high operating speed and infinite
read/write endurance, SOT has the potential to replace both
embedded non-volatile memory and embedded cache in microcontrollers,
microprocessors and system-on-chip designs.
It is widely recognized as the next generation MRAM, beyond
spin-transfer torque (STT) which is currently ramping up at major
semiconductor foundries.
Magnetoresistance is the property of a material, typically ferromagnetic,
to change the value of its electrical resistance in an
externally applied magnetic field, the effect that makes it used
as a data storage mechanism. The ferromagnetic material used
by Antaios is a full magnetic tunnel junction stack supplied by
Applied Materials, which is also an investor. Expert in modifying
materials at atomic levels and on an industrial scale, its materials
engineering systems are used to produce virtually every new
chip and advanced display in the world.
The three other MRAM-related start-ups at which Nozierre, a
physicist, has been a founder are Crocus Technology, where he
served as CTO, eVaderis, and Hprobe. He is a research director
from CNRS, France's largest research organization. He is also
a founder of its Spintec laboratory and was formerly executive
director of the lab. Antaios, founded in 2017, was spun-off from
the lab. He has also worked in IBM's Storage System Division
and Applied Magnetics Corporation in the US.
For more info, see www.antaios.fr
STT
SOT
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