A Place for Graphene Memory?

An article in EE Times by R. Colin Johnson brings back the name of programmable pioneer Zvi Or-Bach, founder of eASIC and Chip Express. Or-Bach’s newest startup, NuPGA, uses graphene, a form of graphite, as the programmable memory element in an FPGA. Gartner senior analyst for FPGAs, Dean Freeman, credited the company as being among many in the programmable architecture field relying on “innovative, creative thinking.”

Or-Bach was smart to tap into the nanomaterials work of Rice University Prof. James Tour, who told Johnson in all frankness that graphene could not take on standard memory processes until sub-10-nm feature sizes become common after 2015. But there’s the problem.

Many “innovative, creative thinkers” were left as road kill in the brutal environment of 2008-09.  Venture funding will not revive quickly, nor will OEMs’ willingness to look at new FPGA architectures.  Unless Or-Bach is ready to keep NuPGA rolling for several years on the basis of angel funding, this could be a hard road up.

The company appears to be targeting ruggedized applications in space and terrestrial mil-aero applications.  NuPGA had better talk to Actel Corp. and others on the tough task of establishing a customer base among military contractors.  And it had better be prepared for a difficult struggle in establishing carbon-based memory.