Crocus Technology, a French start-up focusing on Magnetic Random Access Memories (MRAM), announces the closing of its Series A round of funding totalling $17 million.

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The round's participants include San Francisco-based Sofinnova Ventures (lead investor), Paris-based firms Ventech, CDC Entreprises Innovation, AGF Private Equity and Sofinnova Partners, and NanoDimension. Crocus wants to become the world leader in the MRAM market.

Crocus was first incorporated in France in 2004 with an initial grant from CEA and CNRS, France's leading research organizations. Crocus is headquartered in Grenoble (France) with operations in the Paris area and in Silicon Valley (California). The MRAM technology that is the foundation on which Crocus is built was developed in the Grenoble-based SPINTEC research center. The related patents and know-how are being transferred to Crocus and will be continuously improved through formal joint development programs between the company, Spintec and other European laboratories.

MRAM memories uniquely combine several key features of other existing memory technologies. They are non-volatile, have a fast read and write speed, an SRAM like interface, an extended lifetime, and a low manufacturing cost.
The proceeds from this fund raising will allow Crocus to hire engineers and scientists in process engineering, test and design from all over Europe and the US. Crocus is also acquiring specialized equipment, which will enable the company to complete a first memory test vehicle in the next 12 months and its first commercial product shortly thereafter.

"This first round, quite unique in this technology area, is a defining moment for Crocus," commented Jean-Pierre Braun, CEO of Crocus. "We now have everything we need to be the first to bring to the marketplace a competitive MRAM memory that will fulfill the customers' expectations, in particular with regards to reliability, speed and capacity," Braun added.

There are many important applications for MRAM memory. They are an ideal fit for mobile phones, PDA's, smart cards, notebook computers, RFID tags, as well as automotive and military applications.

French based Altis Semiconductor, a joint-venture between IBM and Infineon, will have to find new customers to survive. Both IBM and Infineon want to exit from their common fab by 2009. Wolfgang Ziebart, Infineon CEO, August Franze, IBM Microelectronics vice-president, and Françoise Gri, IBM France CEO, met with the French representatives in Corbeil-Esssonnes in the beginning of June, to explain that they didn’t want to pass new orders after 2009. The best solution for Altis would be to become a pure foundry, but it means to invest in more advanced processes. At present, Altis is engaged in a restructuring plan concerning the layoff of 424 employees out of 1946 total workforce.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released an updated forecast projecting worldwide sales of semiconductors will grow by 9.8 percent to $249.6 billion in 2006. The forecast was revised upward from the November forecast projecting an increase of 7.9 percent. The SIA attributed the upward revision to stronger than expected growth in key end markets for semiconductors, most notably cell phones. The SIA now believes approximately one billion cell phones will be sold worldwide in 2006. With an average semiconductor content of $41 per unit, this segment is now second only to personal computers in terms of total chip consumption.

The revised forecast also includes more optimistic projections for industry sales from 2006 through 2009. According to the SIA, the industry will grow by 11.0 percent in 2007, 12.0 percent in 2008, and 4.0 percent in 2009. If the latest forecast materializes, worldwide semiconductor sales will reach $323 billion in 2009. The new forecast projects an average compound annual growth rate of 9.2 percent from 2005 through 2009.

The new forecast projects that analog products will be one of the fastest-growing segments of the market in 2006, with growth driven by strong demand from wireless communications and industrial and medical equipment applications. The revised forecast projects growth of 17.3 percent to $37.4 billion. This segment is projected to grow to $48.6 billion by 2009, a CAGR of 11.1 percent.

Discrete products are projected to grow by 4.9 percent to $16.0 billion in 2006 and to $18.9 in 2009, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5 percent.

Optoelectronic device sales are projected to grow by 11 percent to $16.5 billion in 2006 and to $21.9 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 10.1 percent.

Microprocessor sales are projected to grow by 4.3 percent to $36.4 billion in 2006 and to $46.0 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 7.1 percent.

Microcontroller sales are projected to grow by 1.9 percent to $12.3 billion in 2006 and to $15.4 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 6.3 percent.

Digital signal processors (DSPs) sales are projected to grow by 18.5 percent to $9.0 billion in 2006 and to $14.1 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 16.7 percent.

MOS logic device sales are projected to grow by 7.6 percent to $62.1 billion in 2006 and to $82.5 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 9.3 percent.

DRAM sales are projected to increase by 9.1 percent to $27.9 billion in 2006 and to $32.8 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 6.4 percent.

Flash memory sales are projected to grow by 20.0 percent to $22.3 billion in 2006 and to $31.1 billion in 2009, a CAGR of 13.7 percent..

The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be the fastest-growing market for chips, and is projected to reach 49 percent of a worldwide market in 2009. Europe will show the slowest growth during the period, growing from $40 billion last year to about $51 billion by 2009. In the same period, the U.S. market is expected to increase from $40.5 billion to about $58 billion, with the Asia Pacific region moving from $103 billion in 2005 to $158 billion in 2009. Japanese market is expected to reach $59 billion by 2009 from $42 million last year.

Fujitsu, NEC Electronics, Renesas Technology and Toshiba have agreed to seek to define a standard process technology that can be applied to the manufacture of advanced system LSIs at the 45 nm generation and beyond.
The joint program will define a basic standard for certain aspects of the process technology that will enable each company to have easier access to the intellectual property (IP) and libraries of the others, in consideration of possible shared use of one another's wafer fabs and potential integration of fabs in the future. Following technical studies, the companies will strive to define the standardized specifications by the end of this year.

Success in defining a basic standard has the potential to promote cross use of IP and libraries among the participants, improve fab operating rates, and facilitate large-scale capital investments among the companies. The framework is expected to boost the overall efficiency of the companies as well as the Japanese semiconductor industry.

In consideration of Advanced Process Semiconductor Foundry Planning Co. Ltd.'s recommendations emphasizing the importance of process technology standardization at the 45nm generation and beyond, the four companies will strive toward this end.