Mission

Unisantis Electronics develops and licenses memory and logic technologies that significantly increase density and reduce power consumption.

Our memory technologies, whether for on-chip embedded memory or external main memory, enable you to integrate much more memory within your silicon area constraints – or integrate the same amount of memory, but within a smaller silicon area.

Our transistor technology offers capex conscious Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), foundries and their fabless customers, a lower-risk path to 3D Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors.

And our technology is inherently more scalable than current solutions.

Origin

Dr MasuokavThe Unisantis Electronics story begins with Dr. Fujio Masuoka, recognised as one of the greatest semiconductor inventors in the world. While working at Toshiba in the 1980s, Dr. Masuoka achieved a series of firsts, and in doing so revolutionised the semiconductor industry. He invented:

  • NOR flash memory
  • NAND flash memory
  • Gate-All-Around (GAA) MOSFET

In terms of his impact, the market for Dr. Masuoka’s invention, flash memory, was worth over $60bn in 2022 (source: Yole Intelligence). The GAA FET approach he pioneered anticipated the decline of the planar transistor era, and has been adopted by industry giants Intel, Samsung and TSMC.

Dr. Masuoka has been recognised with several major awards, from the Emperor of Japan, the IEEE, The Economist, and the Honda Foundation amongst others. In 2010 Dr Masuoka was inducted into Computer History Museum and in 2011 into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame. After retiring from Toshiba, Dr. Masuoka became a Professor at Tohoku University, where he continued his research into 3D transistors.

A large international business group expressed its desire to work closely with Dr. Masuoka and Unisantis Electronics was established with Dr Masuoka as the founding CTO.

Backed by patient capital, Unisantis Electronics has undertaken fundamental, cutting-edge research, of the type usually undertaken in large corporate labs.

How we can help

Unisantis Electronics has developed the following patented technologies for licensing:

 

Stacked Dynamic Flash Memory (DFM)

Stacked DFM is a capacitor-less alternative/supplement to traditional 1T1C DRAM, the workhorse memory of the industry.

Stacked DFM offers significant bit cost (Gb/mm2) improvements over DRAM. It promises more bandwidth and power efficient operation, thanks to very low leakage and non-destructive reads.

 

Key-shaped Floating Body Memory (KFBM)

KFBM is a capacitor-less alternative to embedded 1T1C DRAM (eDRAM) and high-density embedded SRAM (eSRAM).

KFBM offers 5X the density of embedded SRAM with better scalability than both eDRAM and eSRAM. This makes KFBM ideal for use in SoCs which require high density memory to implement L3 or SLC/LLC caches, as well as large, low latency bulk random access memories to store code and data on-chip, as used in AI and ML at the edge, frame buffers, etc.

It is straightforward to fabricate on a standard CMOS process unlike eDRAM and avoids the unusual process steps and exotic materials of other approaches that drive up costs and lower yield.

 

Vertical Surrounding Gate Transistor (SGT)

SGT is a pivotal 3D transistor technology for semiconductor foundries and Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM) looking to move beyond planar transistors and into the Gate-All-Around (GAA) era, expanding their addressable market while preserving their R&D budgets.

SGT contains several major innovations that significantly reduces silicon area and makes it particularly advantageous for ultra-low power designs, especially for memories such as SRAM, in contrast to current GAA implementations.

IP portfolio

Through its long-term approach to R&D, Unisantis Electronics has created a multi-dimensional patent portfolio, protecting its technology in principal markets, across the key aspects of its technology (from architecture to manufacturing process) and its various applications, encompassing logic, memory and solid-state imaging.

  • 696 Patents granted or allowed, 150 pending
  • 277 US issued patents
  • No material encumbrances

Timeline

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