An Innovate UK project worth £1.1M has been awarded to Quinas Technology, a Lancaster University spinout firm, alongside the global semiconductor company IQE and Lancaster and Cardiff Universities. This marks the first step toward volume production of ULTRARAM™, a computer memory that combines the non-volatility of data storage memory with the speed, energy efficiency, and endurance of working memory.
ULTRARAM™ is an R&D&I project funded under ATTRACT phase 2, invented by Lancaster Physics Professor Manus Hayne. This memory uses a patented triple-barrier resonant tunnelling structure to deliver an unmatched combination of speed, non-volatility, endurance and energy efficiency, and it focuses on two of its many potential application areas: datacentres and space.
Most of the funding for the one-year project will be spent at IQE which will scale up the manufacture of compound semiconductor layers from Lancaster University to an industrial process at the Cardiff-based firm. This will involve IQE developing advanced capability for growth of the compound semiconductors gallium antimonide and aluminium antimonide for the first time. The project follows significant investment to boost the UK semiconductor industry and the establishment of the world’s first compound semiconductor cluster in South Wales.
Professor Hayne, who is the Lancaster team lead, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Quinas said: “We are delighted that Innovate UK is supporting this ambitious project and that IQE has committed to developing the first part of ULTRARAM mass production.” It is estimated that the global memory chip market will be worth about US$320 billion by 2030 but the UK currently has no stake in it.
“ULTRARAM represents a tremendous economic opportunity for the UK, and the efficiencies it could bring to computing at all scales has the potential for huge energy savings and carbon emission reduction,” said Professor Hayne.
ULTRARAM™ is a highly disruptive technology capable of storing data for more than 1,000 years. It is coordinated by Lancaster University in collaboration with BT, Integrity Scientific, IP Pragmatics, and the University of Wollongong.
Read the full story at the Lancaster University website here.
Here you can watch a video of the ULTRARAM™ project:
For more information
Visit the ULTRARAM™ project site.
