Hmmmmmm, I'm inclined to disagree Sir.RRAM IP
Many companies have been working on RRAM, for a long time. A very, very long time- which in some respects is a good thing.
Most importantly, the patents on the basic RRAM switching concepts apparently have expired.
The slide below is from a Deepak C. Sekar presentation. Deepak is Chief Scientist at MonolithIC 3D Inc. He also spent almost three years at SanDisk working on both NAND and 3D crosspoint memory.
Deepak makes three points about RRAM IP in the slide above:
Patents, if any, on the basic switching concepts have expired.
Good patents on more advanced concepts exist (eg) Pt-replacement approaches, array architectures, doping, etc.
IP scenario for RRAM a key advantage. Other resistive memories have gate-keepers (eg) Basic patents on PCM, CB-RAM, STT-MRAM fro Ovonyx, Axon Technologies, Grandis.
I suspect SanDisk and Toshiba have a particularly nice hand of good patents on the more advanced RRAM concepts, specifically array architectures.
The slide below is from SanDisk’s 2010 Investor Day.
Eli makes the point that SanDisk holds “Fundamental patents in 3D diode arrays (apply to most 3D approaches)”
I’m going to end with this slide from the IMEC consortium. Its a nice summary showing floating gate NAND, 3D Vertical NAND, and RRAM graphed against Cost/Bit and chip capacity.
29 September 2021
4DS GRANTED 32nd USA PATENT
4DS Memory Limited (ASX:4DS) (4DS) (the Company), is pleased to announce the granting of an additional USA
patent.
Details of the USA patent grant are as follows:
Conductive Amorphous Oxide Contact Layers - Patent Number 11,133,464.
All patents have been developed in-house and are free from any royalty and or licensing obligations.
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Dr Guido Arnout stated “The granting of patents is an extremely
important strategy for the Company to protect its unique Interface Switching ReRAM in the overall ReRAM space.”
