News - Intrinsic AI Solutions

Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies Secures £7m Investment to Solve the Memory Bottleneck for Data Hungry Applications

Chris Rain — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Innovative non-volatile memory technology from UCL spin-out will create a new generation of small devices with big brains that embed intelligence everywhere

London, March 13th 2023 – Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies, the next generation memory technology company, today announced it has secured £7 million in a funding round led by Octopus Ventures and supported by existing investors IP Group and the UCL Technology Fund as well as £1m in InnovateUK grants. The new funding will support the expansion of its engineering team to bring its product to market and enable a new generation of smart devices and self-contained systems with embedded intelligence.

Based on more than a decade’s research at University College London (UCL), Intrinsic has developed an innovative approach to non-volatile memory using resistive random-access memory (RRAM). The technology can read data 10x to 100x faster and write it 1000x faster than existing solutions and uses standard, frequently used materials, which are less complex or expensive compared to other RRAM solutions. It is also fully CMOS compliant to make it easier and cost effective for foundries to integrate the technology within existing chip manufacturing facilities. Together, these technological advantages will allow data hungry applications to overcome the memory bottleneck caused by current external flash memory, delivering dramatically higher performance at a much lower energy consumption.

“We believe RRAM has the potential to become the backbone for the next generation of edge and IoT computers at a time when data hungry intelligent applications are becoming more and more prevalent,” said Mark Dickinson, CEO, Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies. “Companies want to integrate more intelligence into self-contained applications and devices so that they can operate autonomously but this requires a paradigm shift in how memory is employed in these environments. By focussing on simplicity and manufacturability in our approach to RRAM we will open up a whole new array of market opportunities and this funding will play a critical role in helping us to attract highly skilled engineers to build out the commercial potential of Intrinsic.”

Yole Intelligence, part of Yole Group estimated in June 2022 that embedded RRAM market will grow from $18m in 2021 to $957m in 2027 at a 94% CAGR. Intrinsic sees many opportunities to integrate its technology with applications and devices that operate autonomously or remotely, ranging from driverless vehicles, robots in manufacturing, farming and warehouses to consumer applications around the home. As its technology offers higher performance at lower cost and energy consumption, it will make it practical to store and process data locally, with the added benefit of enhancing privacy. Data will no longer need to be stored or processed in the cloud, which is also good for those applications operating remotely where connectivity blind spots may be an issue.

“Intrinsic underlines the potential of the UK semiconductor industry to develop radical new solutions for the next generation of devices,” said Owen Metters, Investor, Deep Tech, Octopus Ventures. “Memory technology has struggled to keep pace with processor innovation in the last decade, but Intrinsic’s technology has the potential to unlock currently inaccessible functionality in a wide range of applications. It will be hugely exciting to work with the Intrinsic team as they commercialise the technology and expand into new markets.”

“By solving the memory bottleneck Intrinsic has achieved a major breakthrough for the use of non-volatile memory in single-chip computers,” added Lee Thornton, Partner, Deeptech, IP Group. “Being able to deliver orders of magnitude faster and cheaper memory with lower energy consumption will make it possible to add intelligent capabilities even at the edge. Solving this memory issue is fundamental to the evolution of such applications.”

“Intrinsic is developing a great example of fundamental innovation with world-changing potential from UCL,” David Grimm, Investment Director UCL Technology Fund. “The team now has the resources to prove the technology at cutting-edge node sizes across millions of devices. We’re very proud of this team and delighted to continue to back them!”

Today’s intelligent applications are redefining the role and requirements for memory in computers, as they demand more memory than ever with improved performance and lower power consumption. Current embedded flash technology cannot fulfil this expectation, because it can no longer be scaled down to integrate in the advanced chips needed for these intelligent applications. Consequently, this requires the higher cost and power consumption of two-chip solutions, or has no solution at all. Intrinsic’s new technology removes this limitation. It allows the integration of fast, cheap and very low power memory on the same chip as the processors enabling vastly greater artificial intelligence capabilities using significantly less energy.

Intrinsic was founded in 2017 by Professor Tony Kenyon, Dr Adnan Mehonic and Dr Wing Ng, who are leading researchers into non-volatile memory at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University College London. The company has already received seed funding from UCLB, UCL Technology Fund and IP Group for its cutting-edge research in this sector.

About Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies

Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies is a UCL spinout company, established in 2017 to commercialise the novel memristive RRAM devices developed by Prof Tony Kenyon and Dr Adnan Mehonic at UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, using their patented IP. Intrinsic’s innovative approach solves the memory bottleneck for data hungry applications by enabling the integration of fast, cheap and very low power memory on the same chip as the processors which will open up a new generation of small devices with big brains that embed intelligence everywhere. For further information, please visit: https://www.intrinsicsemi.com/

About Octopus Ventures

Octopus Ventures is one of the largest and most active venture capital investors in the UK and Europe, investing in and supporting the people, ideas and industries that are changing the world.

It has built expertise across six sectors: B2B software, climate tech, consumer tech, deep tech, fintech and health, and has backed more than 180 businesses across the UK and Europe, including successes like Zoopla, WaveOptics, Cazoo and Depop. Octopus Ventures invests in people and teams from as early as ideas on a page all the way through to the later stages of growth, providing capital, expertise, and partnership.

Octopus Ventures manages £1.9 bn for retail and institutional investors and invests £200m each year. It is part of Octopus Group, a group of entrepreneurial businesses united by a common goal: backing the people, ideas and industries that will change the world. Hear from Octopus Ventures experts at: www.octopusventures.com

About UCL Technology Fund

The UCL Technology Fund is dedicated to investing in intellectual property commercialisation opportunities arising from UCL’s world-class research base, focusing in particular on the physical and life sciences. The Fund supports UCL in achieving the full potential of innovations that have prospects for outstanding societal and market impact, right through the development journey from initial proof of concept to practical commercial application. The Fund is managed by AlbionVC, one of the largest independent venture capital investors in the UK, in collaboration with UCL Business. For further information please visit: www.ucltf.co.uk

About IP Group

IP Group develops world-changing science and technology businesses across life sciences, technology and cleantech (through Kiko Ventures). The Group has a strong track record of success, having been the founder investor in a number of high-profile companies including Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc, and has one of the most exciting portfolios of high-growth businesses in Europe. The Group also owns Parkwalk, the UK's largest growth EIS fund manager which backs world-changing technologies emerging from the UK’s leading universities and research institutions. IP Group is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the code IPO. For more information, please visit our website at www.ipgroupplc.com.

Intrinsic closes £1.35m seed funding round to prototype next generation memory devices

Chris Rain — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 17:15:00 +0000

Intrinsic closes £1.35m seed funding round to prototype next generation memory devices

22 March 2021 – London

Memory innovator Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies Ltd (“Intrinsic”) has announced the close of a £1.35m seed funding round led by investors UCL Technology Fund and IP Group plc.

The funding will enable Intrinsic to disrupt the $60bn non-volatile memory market by partnering with leading semiconductor research foundry, imec in Belgium, to develop prototypes of its proprietary non-volatile memory devices using industry standard ‘complementary metal oxide semiconductor’ (CMOS) processing on 300mm silicon wafers.

Memory performance is a limiting factor in nearly all current and emerging computing applications and Intrinsic’s technology will address this through superior performance while adhering to well established and low-cost manufacturing techniques. Non-volatile memory is used in a large and ever-increasing range of electronic products. It is the permanent memory used in smartphones, laptops, USB sticks, cameras, SSD hard drives etc. and today it is based on the technology known as ‘Flash’ memory.

At the heart of Intrinsic’s revolutionary technology is a ‘memristor’, also known as ReRAM or RRAM, invented by the company’s founders, Professor Tony Kenyon and Dr Adnan Mehonic, eminent researchers in the field of nanoelectronics and materials science. Supported by commercialisation arm UCL Business, they spun out their research to create Intrinsic.

Due to the incompatibility with the current manufacturing processes, it is very difficult and costly to integrate Flash memory technology in the same semiconductor chip as the processor. This limitation severely impacts power consumption, increases cost, and is hampering the development of new applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial intelligence (AI); areas which require lower power, more performance and higher memory capacity.

Intrinsic’s novel memory technology is based on the same materials as the CMOS chip itself, such as silicon oxide, which removes a key limitation and changes what is possible. Intrinsic’s memory is easier to integrate and inherently faster and more power efficient than Flash. This technology will provide a huge improvement to the power consumption and cost of future devices that will drive an increasing range of everyday products and services.

Professor Tony Kenyon, Co-Founder of Intrinsic and Professor of Nanoelectronic & Nanophotonic Materials, said:

“Existing memory technologies, such as Flash, are reaching the limits of their capabilities - particularly in embedded systems such as those we need in IoT devices. Intrinsic’s memristor technology will transform next generation systems by combining high performance with ease of integration in digital CMOS. By basing our devices on silicon oxide, we ensure that they are as simple and as cheap to integrate with silicon-based electronics as it is possible to be."

Mark Dickinson, CEO of Intrinsic, said:

“There is a huge potential market for new memristive technologies. Having seen the potential for new memory technologies to disrupt the sector in my time in senior roles at ARM and Imagination, I am excited to be working with two of the most prominent researchers in the field to bring the best memristor technology to market. This is an exciting invention from a leading UK university with the potential for truly global impact.”

Dr Adnan Mehonic, Co-Founder of Intrinsic and Assistant Professor at UCL’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said:

“The overall performance of hardware we use for AI is determined and limited by the bandwidth and energy-efficiency of memory technologies. A fast, energy-efficient, cheap and scalable non-volatile memory that can be incorporated directly on a chip, such as our silicon oxide memristors, will significantly improve the performance, especially for energy-efficient edge computing. Furthermore, our technology could be utilised for analogue AI hardware accelerators currently in development and novel computing paradigms, such as neuromorphic and spiking-based computing.”

Lee Thornton, Investment Director, IP Group Plc, said:

“The ground-breaking approach to creating digital memory being commercialised at Intrinsic will not only offer a solution to the bottleneck in current systems, but will allow the creation of new computing architectures for emerging sectors including artificial intelligence. IP Group is delighted to be part of Intrinsic’s journey from the outset.

David Grimm, Investment Director, UCL Technology Fund, said:

“Intrinsic’s technology has been getting us very excited at the UCL Technology Fund. World class academic research with massive transformational potential for a problem plaguing the computing world and an industry leader at the reins is a brilliant setup. We’re delighted to be continuing to support the team on its journey!”

Steven Schooling, Director of Physical Sciences & Engineering for UCL Business, said:

“We’re delighted and proud to see that Intrinsic, a UCLB spinout, is taking forward cutting-edge university research and pushing the boundaries of innovation for computer and electronic hardware. We look forward to seeing the company flourish.”

ENDS

About Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies:

Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies is a UCL spinout company, established in 2017 to commercialise the novel memristive RRAM devices developed by Prof Tony Kenyon and Dr Adnan Mehonic at UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, using their patented IP. Based in London, Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies is currently developing commercial prototypes of its new memory devices, with the aim of establishing its proven designs as licensable IP for chip manufacturers.

For further information, please visit: https://www.intrinsicst.com/

About UCL Technology Fund

The UCL Technology Fund is dedicated to investing in intellectual property commercialisation opportunities arising from UCL’s world-class research base, focusing in particular on the physical and life sciences. The Fund helps UCL academics achieve the full potential of innovations that have prospects for outstanding societal and market impact, right through the development journey from initial proof of concept to practical commercial application. The Fund is managed by AlbionVC, a leading independent venture fund manager in the UK, in collaboration with UCL Business. AlbionVC is a trading name of Albion Capital Group LLP which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

For further information please visit: www.ucltf.co.uk

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading intellectual property commercialisation company which focuses on evolving great ideas, mainly from its partner universities, into world-changing businesses. The Group has pioneered a unique approach to developing these ideas and the resulting businesses by providing access to business building expertise, capital (through its 100%-owned FCA-authorised subsidiaries IP Capital and Parkwalk Advisors), networks, recruitment and business support. IP Group has a strong track record of success and its portfolio comprises holdings in early-stage to mature businesses across life sciences and technology. IP Group is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the code IPO. www.ipgroupplc.com.

PR Contacts

Madano - +44 7785 476201 / uclb@madano.com

Nanometre Scale Devices Announced

Chris Rain — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 17:07:00 +0000

Intrinsic claims that, at 50nm, the technology demonstrates ‘excellent switching behaviour’.

“We are delighted to have hit this critical milestone, confirming our theoretical analysis that the devices can be made with nanoscale dimensions,” says CEO Mark Dickinson, “ this means, at last, there will be a simple and low-cost way to integrate non-volatile memory in any chip.”

Using Intrinsic’s technology, any chip designer will be able to embed a non-volatile memory that is as fast to read as SRAM but at a fraction of the cost and power consumption.

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sureCore and Intrinsic Collaborate to Deliver RRAM Non-Volatile Memories

Chris Rain — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 16:04:00 +0000

Intrinsic and sureCore are collaborating to deliver commercial memory solutions using sureCore’s patented memory architectures and Intrinsic’s novel RRAM cell. Using a combination of Intrinsic’s CMOS compatible technology and sureCore’s high-performance, low power memory architectures will enable an accelerated development process and delivery of this new embedded non-volatile memory to be realised. In addition, by exploiting sureCore’s extensive experience with memory compiler design, statistical verification and characterisation this novel RRAM technology will be made readily available to SoC developers looking for next generation high-speed low-power non-volatile embedded memory.

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Intrinsic in Top 10 Neuromorphic Startups

Chris Rain — Tue, 18 May 2021 10:48:00 +0000

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Dr Adnan Mehonic named MIT Technology Review 2021 Innovator under 35

Chris Rain — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 17:05:52 +0000

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Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

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Frontiers in Neuroscience publishes the Intrinsic team’s paper on Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity in Unipolar Silicon Oxide RRAM Devices

Chris Rain — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 11:56:00 +0000

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Applied Physics Letters publishes the Intrinsic team’s paper on Light-activated resistance switching in SiOx RRAM devices

Chris Rain — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 11:58:00 +0000

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The BBC’s In Their Element Interviews Professor Tony Kenyon

Chris Rain — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 11:00:00 +0000

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EE Times Features Intrinsic

Chris Rain — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 12:07:00 +0000

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Frontiers in Neuroscience Publishes the Intrinsic team’s paper on Emulating the Electrical Activity of the Neuron Using a Silicon Oxide RRAM Cell

News - Intrinsic AI Solutions

Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies Secures £7m Investment to Solve the Memory Bottleneck for Data Hungry Applications

Intrinsic closes £1.35m seed funding round to prototype next generation memory devices

Nanometre Scale Devices Announced

sureCore and Intrinsic Collaborate to Deliver RRAM Non-Volatile Memories

Intrinsic in Top 10 Neuromorphic Startups

Dr Adnan Mehonic named MIT Technology Review 2021 Innovator under 35

Frontiers in Neuroscience publishes the Intrinsic team’s paper on Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity in Unipolar Silicon Oxide RRAM Devices

Applied Physics Letters publishes the Intrinsic team’s paper on Light-activated resistance switching in SiOx RRAM devices

The BBC’s In Their Element Interviews Professor Tony Kenyon

EE Times Features Intrinsic

Frontiers in Neuroscience Publishes the Intrinsic team’s paper on Emulating the Electrical Activity of the Neuron Using a Silicon Oxide RRAM Cell

The BBC’s Material World Interviews Professor Tony Kenyon of Intrinsic

The Register Reports on Intrinsic’s Breakthrough

Intrinsic’s Technology Features in BBC News