Everspin Technologies announced today that they closed a Series B financing, raising $15 million from venture capital firms including New Venture Partners, Sigma Partners, Lux Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Epic Ventures. The money will be used to launch their first ST-MRAM products (hopefully by 2013).

Everspin ST-MRAM chips

Everspin also announced that they sold over 10 million MRAM chips. In the end of 2011 the company said they sold 4 million chips. They actually hoped to sell 5 million chips in 2012 which means that the current rate is actually lower than expected (if they only now reached 10 million chips) - but still this is an impressive milestone for MRAM technology (Everspin is still the only company shipping commercial MRAM chips).

Crocus Technology have completed their Series D round of funding, raising €34 million (about $45 million). The company raised $80 so far (not counting the $300 million from RUSNANO towards a manufacturing fab in Russia). The company hopes to start generating revenue by the end of 2013 and become cashflow break-even by the end of 2014.

Crocus are rather busy. They will use the money to ramp up its manufacturing at Tower Semiconductors (in Israel) while also qualifying its Russian joint venture fab in Moscow. They expect first engineering wafers in the summer.

Samsung Electronics launched a new global research outreach program aimed towards STT-MRAM innovation. The Samsung Global MRAM Innovation (SGMI) is looking for colleges, universities and research labs from all over the world to explore breakthrough and innovative STT-MRAM research.

Samsung invites submissions for novel ideas on STT-MRAM research - and the selected proposals will receive financial support from Samsung. Samsung will give around $70,000 to $150,000 for one year research (which may be extended for up to three years). They may also offer larger funds for exceptional proposals. The deadline for submission is September 28, 2013.

Singulus Technologies and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany announced a $12 million partnership that will involve co-development of MRAM technologyies and processes for Tunnel Magneto Resistance (TMR) materials. Singulus and CNSE aim to deliver a critical technical need required to establish a fully installed, multi-equipment MRAM tool set capable of module and integrated processing for an MRAM development program.

More specifically, they will develop innovative deposition techniques (on 300mm equipment) for TMR materials and material stacks critical for advanced technology nodes. The research will focus on developing techniques to enable improvements in film deposition rates, deposition uniformity, and mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties, as well as advancing TMR processes and applications.

Avalanche Technology announced that it has raised $30 million from existing investors (Vulcan Capital, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures) and also from a new investor, VTB capital. Avalanche hopes that this investment will enable them to bring the first products into the market.

Avalanche will produce STT-MRAM chips based on their proprietary SPMEM (Spin Programmable Memory) technology. SPMEM uses a revolutionary spin current and voltage switching technology that enables "lower write current, smaller cell size and excellent scalability". The first products will use a 65 nm process, but the company says that their technology is scalable to 10 nm or even less.

Spin Transfer Technologies (STT) announced that they raised $36 million in series A funding led by parent company, Allied Minds and Invesco Asset Management. STT will use the money to accelerate the development of its patented orthogonal spin transfer magneto resistive random access memory technology (OST-MRAM) - by scaling operation, hiring new employees and purchasing equipment.

This is great news for STT. The last we heard from the company was in November 2010 when they announced the successful development of the STT-MRAM device that uses STT's proprietary orthogonal spin transfer technology with a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) for memory state read-out.

There are reports that Everspin is looking for venture capital cash - as it wants to hire more people needed to expand operation. The company expects to ship over 5 million MRAM chips in 2012 to over 300 customers.

Last month Everspin announced a 300% growth in product shipment in 2011 with 250 new design wins, including Dell and LSI.

Crocus announced that they acquired NXP Semiconductor's MRAM patent portfolio - which includes fundamental MRAM intellectual property rights in multiple geographies worldwide, including North America, Europe and Asia.

Crocus now holds over 100 issued and pending patents related to the magnetic semiconductor technology covering magnetic materials, devices, and design and product technology.

Samsung announced that it has acquired Grandis, developer of STT-MRAM technology. We do not have any financial details yet, but Grandis' CEO Frahad Tabrizi said that this deal serves as a& "very successful exit" for Grandis's investors. Grandis raised $15 million since it was founded in 2002 (and also raised about the same from DARPA grants including a $8.6 million second-phase project granted in June 2010).

Grandis licensed their technology to several companies. We know that Hynix licensed it in 2008. The company was also collaborating with Renesas technologies. Hynix and Grandis were developing a compact in-plane MTJ based STT-RAM device that uses modified DRAM processes at 54nm.

A couple of weeks ago we reported that Crocus have successfully developed their 2nd generation MRAM products. It was rumored that Crocus will produce these chips in Russia, and today RusNano confirmed the story. The Russian state-owned investment group will invest $64 million to build an MRAM chip fab in Russia and further $55m will be invested in Crocus, which will control 51% of the joint venture (called Crocus Nano Electronics). They will begin mass producing MRAM chips in 2013.