2024 Outlook with Coby Hanoch of Weebit Nano

Weebit Nano is an Israeli semiconductor company that specializes in the development and commercialization of silicon oxide-based ReRAM (Resistive Random Access Memory) technology. ReRAM is a type of non-volatile memory that holds great promise for future computing and storage applications due to its potential for high density, low power consumption, and fast operation. I have known Coby for many years and it is a pleasure to work with Weebit, absolutely.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company
I started off as an engineer and spent my first 17 years on the engineering side, mostly in functional verification roles. I was part of the founding team of Verisity, where I made the switch to the business side, and have been in VP Sales and CEO roles for the past 27 years. I joined Weebit over six years ago, when it was still a small company with only two engineers. I am very proud of the progress we’ve made towards making Weebit a key player in the ReRAM space, with over 30 engineers and many supporting contractors.

Weebit is developing a new Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technology called ReRAM, which is recognized today as the leading contender to replace flash technology in the future. Our ReRAM has a long list of advantages over flash, in terms of speed, power consumption, endurance, simplicity to manufacture, and most importantly cost to manufacture. Weebit ReRAM can scale down to advanced geometries, and is now fully qualified at 85⁰C and 125⁰C. We’re continuing to qualify our embedded ReRAM at higher endurance and temperature levels, broadening target applications as well as demonstrating the maturity of our technology.

We’ve already licensed our ReRAM technology to DB HiTek and SkyWater, and we are in ongoing evaluations and negotiations with other major foundries and IDMs. We’re also scaling our ReRAM down to more advanced geometries and are thoroughly testing the first 22nm chips embedded with our ReRAM and manufactured by GlobalFoundries.

What was the most exciting high point of 2023 for your company?
We achieved several major milestones in 2023. Qualifying our ReRAM at 125⁰C – the temperature required for automotive grade-1 and some industrial applications – was important since it demonstrates the suitability of Weebit ReRAM for high-temperature applications with lifespans of at least a decade. But perhaps the biggest highlight was the progress we made with major foundries/IDMs, culminating in the recent licensing agreement with DB HiTek, one of the top-10 foundries in the world. This is setting the stage for additional agreements in 2024.

What was the biggest challenge your company faced in 2023?
While it may sound counterintuitive, one of our biggest challenges in 2023 was our rapid growth. Over the past two years, the market began to realize that ReRAM is no longer a “future memory” – it is now a reality. In parallel, we qualified the technology and started signing licensing agreements. This presented challenges in needing to scale our workforce to meet prospect/customer expectations, including running multiple concurrent projects and evaluations at different process nodes and wafer sizes.

How is your company’s work addressing this biggest challenge?
We’ve been scaling the company in multiple ways, not just adding more people but also aligning teams together, forming new workgroups, and collecting/analyzing data for effective IP reuse and product alignment. One of the great things about Weebit is that we are strong across all the key disciplines needed to create a leading memory company. We have world-class talent across the four key ReRAM disciplines – device physics, process and materials, analog and digital design and algorithms, and test and characterization. I believe we have broader expertise than any other standalone ReRAM provider. This is all supported by our extremely experienced Board of Directors, including Dadi Perlmutter who led development of the Pentium while at Intel, Atiq Raza who helped push AMD to its leading position, and Yoav Nissan-Cohen who co-founded Tower Semiconductor, among others.

What do you think the biggest growth area for 2024 will be, and why?
I believe 2024 will be the year of ReRAM. There is a huge vacuum in the market which needs to be filled. Now that people know ReRAM is available and realize its great potential, practically all the world’s foundries and IDMs are looking for a ReRAM solution.

At Weebit, we are providing a licensable embedded ReRAM solution that foundries can easily add to their IP portfolios and semiconductor companies can easily embed in their SoCs. We’re seeing a great deal of interest in areas such as power management ICs, wearable medical devices, aerospace and defense, edge AI and automotive solutions.

How is your company’s work addressing this growth?
To address the growing demand for ReRAM across a broad range of applications, we are setting up a strong sales organization which will work with these foundries/IDMs and expand to others. We are already engaged in evaluations, negotiations and other activities with the majority of the top foundries and IDMs. At Weebit, the quality of our team and our singular focus on ReRAM ensures we are well placed to become the leader in the burgeoning ReRAM domain.

What conferences did you attend in 2023 and how was the traffic?
In 2023 we attended shows including Embedded World in Germany, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco and CSIA – ICCAD in China. These conferences were successful for us, generated many good leads, and enabled discussions with partners. While floor traffic was not always strong, the fact that we arranged many meetings in advance, along with the strong interest we are seeing in ReRAM, created a situation where the booth was full at almost all times.

Will you attend conferences in 2024? Same or more?
In 2024, we will once again attend Embedded World in Germany, and we will extend our activities to include exhibiting at the first Embedded World North America, which will be held this autumn in Austin. The interest we are seeing in ReRAM is worldwide, and the United States is no exception, so we look forward to meeting with many potential customers and partners at that show. Some of our team also attended CES in Las Vegas, and we plan to expand this activity next year.

Additional questions or final comments?
Thank you, Dan, for continuing to share industry developments through SemiWiki. It’s good to catch up with you.

Also Read:

ReRAM Integration in BCD Process Revolutionizes Power Management Semiconductor Design

A preview of Weebit Nano at DAC – with commentary from ChatGPT

How an Embedded Non-Volatile Memory Can Be a Differentiator