 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| TWSE: 2337 | |
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Headquarters | |
![2M-BIT [256K x 8] CMOS Flash Memory ADSV-931 Mini Docking Station - LAN module - Macronix 28F2000PQC-12C4-93548.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/ADSV-931_Mini_Docking_Station_-_LAN_module_-_Macronix_28F2000PQC-12C4-93548.jpg/170px-ADSV-931_Mini_Docking_Station_-_LAN_module_-_Macronix_28F2000PQC-12C4-93548.jpg)
Macronix International Co., Ltd. (MCIX; often shortened to Macronix) is an integrated device manufacturer in the non-volatile memory (NVM) market. The company manufactures NOR Flash, NAND Flash, and ROM products for the consumer, communication, computing, automotive, and networking markets. Its headquarters are located in Taiwan.
Headquartered in Taiwan, Macronix was established in 1989. By 1997, the company was a global supplier of Mask ROM and EPROMs. [1]
In 2012 the company developed a process to prolong the life of solid state drives. [2]
Macronix developed specialized memory chips for the consumer electronics industry, including those used in Nintendo's 3DS and Switch devices, [3] and Samsung's wearable electronic devices. [4]
The company presently has more than 4,000 employees -- approximately one-fifth of whom serve in research and development roles -- and a market capitalization of approximately US$1.56 billion. Macronix's total revenues in 2023 were US$888 million, slightly more than one-half of which was derived from NOR flash, followed by ROM revenues at approximately one-third.
As of March 2024, Macronix has had 9,200 patents granted.
Macronix owns two in-house wafer-manufacturing foundries -- one for 200-nanometer wafers, the other for 300-nanometer wafers. The company also has sales and support branches in Europe, the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and China.
Recognizing the market opportunity in proprietary semiconductor designs becoming high-volume, open-market flash memory, Macronix leveraged flash memory customized for specific customers into widely available devices for broader applications. [5]
Macronix has developed partnerships with various microcontroller manufacturers to pair its OctaBus flash memory with the partners’ MCUs. [6]
In the automotive market, Macronix’s automotive-grade ArmorFlash and OctaFlash memory families are being adopted by automotive-electronics semiconductor and system makers such as Nvidia and NXP to bring highly secure data storage to vehicles. [7] [8] [9]
In 2021, Macronix became the first NVM manufacturer to bring 1.2-volt, 120MHz Serial NOR flash to mass production, contributing to a new generation and broader range of devices requiring ultra-low-power flash memory. [10]
Macronix in 2022 introduced its memory-centric computing concept, developed to enable AI-focused computation within flash devices. [11] [12] Also in 2022, Macronix received EE Times Asia’s Best Memory Product award for the second consecutive year. [13]
Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use the same cell design, consisting of floating gate MOSFETs. They differ at the circuit level depending on whether the state of the bit line or word lines is pulled high or low: in NAND flash, the relationship between the bit line and the word lines resembles a NAND gate; in NOR flash, it resembles a NOR gate.
The foundry model is a microelectronics engineering and manufacturing business model consisting of a semiconductor fabrication plant, or foundry, and an integrated circuit design operation, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries.
Phase-change memory is a type of non-volatile random-access memory. PRAMs exploit the unique behaviour of chalcogenide glass. In PCM, heat produced by the passage of an electric current through a heating element generally made of titanium nitride is used to either quickly heat and quench the glass, making it amorphous, or to hold it in its crystallization temperature range for some time, thereby switching it to a crystalline state. PCM also has the ability to achieve a number of distinct intermediary states, thereby having the ability to hold multiple bits in a single cell, but the difficulties in programming cells in this way has prevented these capabilities from being implemented in other technologies with the same capability.
The 90 nm process refers to the technology used in semiconductor manufacturing to create integrated circuits with a minimum feature size of 90 nanometers. It was an advancement over the previous 130 nm process. Eventually, it was succeeded by smaller process nodes, such as the 65 nm, 45 nm, and 32 nm processes.
An integrated device manufacturer (IDM) is a semiconductor company which designs, manufactures, and sells integrated circuit (IC) products.
SK hynix Inc. is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. Hynix is the world's second-largest memory chipmaker and the world's sixth-largest semiconductor company. Founded as Hyundai Electronic Industrial Co., Ltd. in 1983 and known as Hyundai Electronics, the company has manufacturing sites in Korea, the United States, mainland China and Taiwan. In 2012, when SK Telecom became its major shareholder, Hynix merged with SK Group.
The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device. It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity. The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observes that transistor count doubles approximately every two years. However, being directly proportional to the area of a chip, transistor count does not represent how advanced the corresponding manufacturing technology is: a better indication of this is transistor density.
NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) is a Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company employs approximately 31,000 people in more than 30 countries. NXP reported revenue of $11.06 billion in 2021.
SONOS, short for "silicon–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon", more precisely, "polycrystalline silicon"—"silicon dioxide"—"silicon nitride"—"silicon dioxide"—"silicon", is a cross sectional structure of MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), realized by P.C.Y. Chen of Fairchild Camera and Instrument in 1977. This structure is often used for non-volatile memories, such as EEPROM and flash memories. It is sometimes used for TFT LCD displays. It is one of CTF (charge trap flash) variants. It is distinguished from traditional non-volatile memory structures by the use of silicon nitride (Si3N4 or Si9N10) instead of "polysilicon-based FG (floating-gate)" for the charge storage material. A further variant is "SHINOS" ("silicon"—"hi-k"—"nitride"—"oxide"—"silicon"), which is substituted top oxide layer with high-κ material. Another advanced variant is "MONOS" ("metal–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon"). Companies offering SONOS-based products include Cypress Semiconductor, Macronix, Toshiba, United Microelectronics Corporation and Floadia.
The "22 nm" node is the process step following 32 nm in CMOS MOSFET semiconductor device fabrication. The typical half-pitch for a memory cell using the process is around 22 nm. It was first demonstrated by semiconductor companies for use in RAM memory in 2008. In 2010, Toshiba began shipping 24 nm flash memory chips, and Samsung Electronics began mass-producing 20 nm flash memory chips. The first consumer-level CPU deliveries using a 22 nm process started in April 2012 with the Intel Ivy Bridge processors.
The "14 nanometer process" refers to a marketing term for the MOSFET technology node that is the successor to the "22 nm" node. The "14 nm" was so named by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). Until about 2011, the node following "22 nm" was expected to be "16 nm". All "14 nm" nodes use FinFET technology, a type of multi-gate MOSFET technology that is a non-planar evolution of planar silicon CMOS technology.
In electronics, a multi-level cell (MLC) is a memory cell capable of storing more than a single bit of information, compared to a single-level cell (SLC), which can store only one bit per memory cell. A memory cell typically consists of a single floating-gate MOSFET, thus multi-level cells reduce the number of MOSFETs required to store the same amount of data as single-level cells.
Spansion Inc. was an American-based company that designed, developed, and manufactured flash memory, microcontrollers, mixed-signal and analog products, and system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. The company had more than 3,700 employees in 2014 and was headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Spansion was a joint-venture between AMD and Fujitsu.
A three-dimensional integrated circuit is a MOS integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or Cu-Cu connections, so that they behave as a single device to achieve performance improvements at reduced power and smaller footprint than conventional two dimensional processes. The 3D IC is one of several 3D integration schemes that exploit the z-direction to achieve electrical performance benefits in microelectronics and nanoelectronics.
Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing software that is rarely changed during the life of the system, also known as firmware. Software applications, such as video games, for programmable devices can be distributed as plug-in cartridges containing ROM.
The memory cell is the fundamental building block of computer memory. The memory cell is an electronic circuit that stores one bit of binary information and it must be set to store a logic 1 and reset to store a logic 0. Its value is maintained/stored until it is changed by the set/reset process. The value in the memory cell can be accessed by reading it.
Weebit Nano is a public semiconductor IP company founded in Israel in 2015 and headquartered in Hod Hasharon, Israel. The company develops Resistive Random-Access Memory technologies. Resistive Random-Access Memory is a specialized form of non-volatile memory (NVM) for the semiconductor industry. The company’s products are targeted at a broad range of NVM markets where persistence, performance, and endurance are all required. ReRAM technology can be integrated in electronic devices like wearables, Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints, smartphones, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and 5G cellular communications, among other products. Weebit Nano’s IP can be licensed to semiconductor companies and semiconductor fabs.
The Chinese semiconductor industry, including integrated circuit design and manufacturing, forms a major part of mainland China's information technology industry.
