A spinout business from the Department of Physics at Lancaster University has just won a prize of $30,000 in the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge. Quinas Technology is commercialising ULTRARAM™, a novel, award-winning, storage device invented by Professor Manus Hayne from the Physics Department. ULTRARAM has been described as a memory storage technology that “combines the non-volatility of a data storage memory, like flash, with the speed, energy-efficiency, and endurance of a working memory, like DRAM”. It is expected that ULTRARAM will deliver the UK a stake in the $100 billion per year memory chip industry.

The IC Taiwan Grand Challenge is an initiative started by the National Science and Technology Council to bolster Taiwan's IC startup ecosystem and attract global tech talent and investment. The Taiwanese semiconductor industry is among the most important in the world. According to a report by Deloitte, the global semiconductor market is expected to see global sales of up to $588 billion in 2024.

The winners of the first round of the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge were announced in September 2024. Selected from a total of 72 teams representing 15 countries, there were just six in total; two each from US and Taiwan, one from Israel and Quinas the only UK winner. Registration for the second round of the Grand Challenge is already underway.

Alongside the prize money, there are additional benefits for the Quinas team with their win. Firstly, they receive mentorship by Taiwanese semiconductor industry experts to support the development of their technology. They also get privileged access to the state-of the-art design, prototyping and fabrication tools at the island’s world-leading chip facilities.

This success follows on quickly from the recent award of a £1.1M Innovate UK project to Quinas to scale up the compound semiconductor wafer growth, the first stage of ULTRARAM production, from an academic to an industrial process.

James Ashforth-Pook CEO of Quinas said: "Winning the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge 2024 with ULTRARAM is an incredible honour for Quinas Technology. This achievement reflects our relentless pursuit of breakthrough innovations in memory technology. ULTRARAM has the potential to revolutionize the industry, and this recognition drives us to further accelerate our efforts in shaping the future of semiconductor memory. We're excited to continue leading the charge toward transformative solutions for future hardware compute and AI."

Lancaster University Physicist and ULTRARAM inventor, Professor Manus Hayne, said “We are delighted to receive this recognition of ULTRARAM’s potential from Taiwan, which produces about 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips. The award opens up the opportunity to collaborate with world-leading Taiwanese semiconductor research and manufacturing partners, advancing commercialisation of the technology and the delivery of global impact and economic benefit for the UK.”