German memory innovators aim to revive domestic memory chip manufacturing
Neumonda and Ferroelectric Memory Company (FMC) are joining forces to advance the development and commercialisation of FMC’s nonvolatile DRAM+ technology. This collaboration aims nothing less than to bring semiconductor DRAM memory design and manufacturing back to Germany.
FMC’s memory innovation integrates ferroelectric hafnium oxide (HfO₂) into DRAM, creating a non-volatile solution tailored for AI, automotive, industrial, consumer and medical applications. Neumonda will support FMC with consulting services and cutting-edge test platforms to refine and validate the technology.
“FMC was founded to exploit the disruptive invention of the ferroelectric effect of HfO2 for semiconductor memories. Applied to a DRAM, it turns the DRAM capacitor into a low power, nonvolatile storage device while maintaining the high DRAM performance to produce a disruptive nonvolatile DRAM memory ideal for AI compute,” explains Thomas Rueckes, CEO of FMC, in a press release. “Since our technology is unique in the market, cost-effective testing of our memory products is of great importance for our product offerings. With Neumonda and its radically new approach to testing, we have found a partner that can help us speed up the development of our products. We also are excited to work with Neumonda as we share the common vision to bring Memory back to Europe”
Neumonda CEO Peter Poechmueller views this partnership as a step toward revitalising semiconductor memory manufacturing in Europe. With advancements in memory testing and novel approaches to production, the two companies aim to enhance local chip manufacturing capabilities and reduce reliance on external markets.
“As our test platforms are maturing, FMC’s products are an ideal test ground to prove the capabilities of our Rhinoe, Octopus, and Raptor testers, as well as the high-quality yield they enable,” says Peter Poechmueller, CEO of Neumonda. “One of my personal goals behind founding Neumonda was to bring semiconductor memory back to Europe. With this collaboration, we take a big step closer to establishing a new German memory manufacturer."
