Crossbar (computer hardware manufacturer)

Privately Held
Industry Semiconductors, Memory
Founded Santa Clara, CA (2010)
Founder George Minassian, Hagop Nazarian, Prof. Wei Lu
Headquarters Santa Clara, CA, USA
Products Semiconductor Memory Technology
Number of employees
 20+

Crossbar is a startup company founded in 2010 and based in California, USA. Crossbar develops a class of non-volatile resistive random-access memory (RRAM) technology.[1] Crossbar RRAM memory allows the ability to deliver up to a terabyte (TB) of storage on a single chip the size of a postage stamp, with very low power, very high performance and compatibility with standard CMOS semiconductor manufacturing processes.[2]

History

Crossbar was founded in 2010 by George Minassian, Ph.D., Hagop Nazarian, and Prof. Wei Lu.[3] As part of the University of Michigan Tech Transfer program, in 2010 Crossbar licensed the RRAM technology and is the exclusive holder of resistive RAM (RRAM) patents from the University of Michigan.[4] Crossbar has filed 100 unique patents, with 30 already issued, relating to the development, commercialization and manufacturing of RRAM technology.[5]

In August 2013, Crossbar emerged from stealth-mode and announced the development of a working Crossbar memory array at a commercial fabrication. Crossbar’s RRAM technology is said to be able to deliver 20x faster write performance; 20x lower power consumption and 10x the endurance at half the die size, compared to best-in-class NAND Flash memory. Since it is CMOS-compatible, it can be easily integrated into existing fabs and processes without any special equipment or materials.[6]

Crossbar has received a total of $25 million in funding from Artiman Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Northern Light Venture Capital and the Michigan Investment in New Technology Startups (MINTS) program.[7]

Markets

Crossbar primarily sells to original equipment manufacturers(OEMs) and system on a chip (SOC) developers of consumer, enterprise, mobile, industrial and connected device products.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Clark, Don. “Crossbar Enters Race to Change Memory Chips” blogs.wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal, 5, Aug. 2013
  2. ↑ Poeter, Damion, “Startup's 'RRAM' Tech Promises 1TB Memory for Mobile Devices” PCMagazine.com, 5, Aug. 2013
  3. ↑ Shah, Agam, “Startup Crossbar pits RRAM against DRAM and flash storage” CIO.com, 5, Aug. 2013
  4. ↑ Moore, Nicole, “Faster, more powerful mobile devices: U-M startup Crossbar could disrupt the memory market” ns.umich.edu, 5, Aug. 2013
  5. ↑ Cole, Bernard, “Startup wants to replace NAND and DRAM with silver RRAMs” embedded.com, 5, Aug. 2013
  6. ↑ Harris, Robin, “Flash successor announced” zdnet.com, 5, Aug. 2013
  7. ↑ Simonite, Tom,“Denser, Faster Memory Challenges Both DRAM and Flash” m.technologyreview.com, 14, Aug. 2013
  8. ↑ Takahasi, Dean, “Crossbar says it will kill the $60B flash memory market with Resistive RAM, which stores a terabyte on a chip” venturebeat.com, 5, Aug. 2013

External links