Reveo developing 3D terabit memory

Developing economies do not have to invest billions of dollars in state-of-the-art fabs to get into the semiconductor industry, according to Sadeg Faris, chairman and chief executive officer of Reveo Inc., which is working on a 3D IC (integrated circuit) that the company says will offer a thousand times density improvement over current IC technology using a conventional fab.

Reveo expects to achieve a terabit of storage of the size of a sugar cube using the new technology, according to Faris.

"The large semiconductor companies are blindly going from 0.13 micron to 0.09 micron and from there to 0.065 micron and 0.045 micron, and every node they go to costs them tens of billions of dollars," Faris said. "They are gradually bumping into the fundamental limits, and they may or may not get to 0.045 micron. Also the density improvement they will be getting from 0.13 to 0.045 micron is maybe 20 times."

The new methodology Reveo is working on envisions system stacks of ultra-thin IC layers. "You take the thin circuit layer from a wafer, and you peel it only 5 micron thick, and then you take a second one and put it on top of the first, you line them up and bond them, and then you peel a third layer and do the same thing, " said Faris, adding that a stack can go up to 1,000 layers, which are wired together on the sidewalls of the stack.

Using the 3D IC technology, memory layers can be stacked to make a small 256Gb memory chip and even a terabit memory chip, according to Faris. The new memories would be cheaper than moving media like disk drives and tape drives.

Memory chips made with the Reveo technology would also be cheaper by about a factor of 10 compared to conventional memory chips, Faris said. "With the 3D integrated circuit technology, you don't spend money on many packaging hierarchies. If you try to do a terabit using conventional technology, you have to package each conventional chip in its own DIP (dual inline package) then you put it in SIMMs (single in-line memory modules) which you put on a number of printed circuit boards."

The new technology will use conventional fab technology, and can use whatever process is available at the fab including 0.1 micron technology, according to Faris. "We don't want to spend money building a fab, and we will use other people's fabs," Faris said. "The only technology we want to keep to ourselves is how you peel the circuit layers, how you align them, bond them and wire them together."

Reveo, in Elmsford, New York, is focused on developing low-cost technologies appropriate to developing economies that the company may later introduce to developing economies.

Reveo's strategy for commercializing the technologies it develops is to spin out companies that will take the technology to the market for specific applications. Some of Reveo's technologies are already being commercialized by subsidiary companies in Taiwan and the U.S., with some subsidiary companies in Malaysia also likely to introduce some of its technologies to the market soon. The company has a joint venture with the Malaysian government, called InventQjaya, to develop and commercialize new technologies. Reveo also plans to have a subsidiary company in India by July to commercialize its technologies in the country.

Reveo has also developed metal-air based fuel cell technology that has a variety of applications including in PDAs (personal digital assistants) and notebook computers. The technology is being commercialized in Taiwan by eVionyx Inc., a Reveo company with operations in the U.S. and Taiwan, and has already been used in electric cars. The metal fuel cell technology works on the oxidization in air of metals like aluminum and zinc, and each cell delivers 1.4 volts.

Reveo is also developing low-cost technology for optical communications over air. A 3D stereoscopic imaging device that can be attached to notebook computers is being commercialized in Japan. Other technologies developed by the company include water desalinization using electro-chemistry, and a specialized hardware for DNA sequencing, Faris said.