In July 2024 they were awarded the year’s funding by Innovate UK to take UltraRAM further towards mass production.
Quinas Technology is the startup founded by IQE and the universities of Lancaster and Cardiff. It was formed to commercialise ULTRARAM memory, which was invented by Professor Manus Hayne (right, centre). ULTRARAM combines the non-volatility of a data storage memory, such as flash, with the speed and energy-efficiency of a working memory, such as DRAM.
Target applications for the memory include artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space and defence.
UltraRAM industrialisation
“This project marks a turning point in the journey from university research to commercial memory products,” said James Ashforth-Pook, Quinas Technology’s CEO.
“With IQE’s industrial capabilities and Innovate UK’s support, we have taken a critical step toward building sovereign capability in memory – the most strategically vital yet underrepresented segment of the UK semiconductor stack.”
Compound semiconductor
The latest project saw IQE scale up the manufacture of compound semiconductor layers to an industrial process. These were initially developed by Lancaster University.
It is potentially the first step towards the commercial packaging of UltraRAM chips.
IQE says it developed an advanced capability in gallium antimonide (GaSb) and aluminium antimonide (AlSb) epitaxy. It highlighted this as a world-first for scalable epitaxy for memory devices.
Innovative Flash
Back in 2023, Quinas Technology was Best of Show in the Most Innovative Flash Memory Startup category at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara.
Later that year it also won an Elektra Award. This was the Readers’ Choice vote for University Research.
Image: IQE
See also: Lancaster University invents universal memory technology
