Innovative Silicon

About Innovative Silicon

Innovative Silicon, Inc. (ISi) operated as a fabless semiconductor company, focusing on the development and licensing of its proprietary memory technology. Founded in 2002 by Pierre C. Fazan and Serguei Okhonin in Lausanne, Switzerland, the company later established its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The founders' journey began with the goal of commercializing Floating Body effect memory, a concept they aimed to apply to a variety of electronics, including handheld computers and game consoles. The firm successfully secured a total of $47 million in venture capital over three funding rounds, with its Series C in 2007 raising $25 million, led by Wellington Partners Venture Capital. ISi’s core business was centered on licensing its Z-RAM® (Zero Capacitor RAM) intellectual property. This technology represented a true single-transistor, floating-body memory that uniquely eliminated the need for the capacitor found in conventional DRAM cells. The primary benefit was a simplified manufacturing process that could significantly lower semiconductor costs. Z-RAM was designed to harness the floating-body effect inherent in Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) semiconductor devices, a phenomenon often considered a parasitic effect, and turn it into a feature for storing binary states. This approach allowed for memory cells that were claimed to be twice as dense as embedded DRAM and five times denser than embedded SRAM. The company's business model targeted semiconductor manufacturers and designers of complex Systems-on-Chip (SoC) and microprocessors. Key licensing agreements were established with Hynix Semiconductor for its DRAM chips and with AMD for use in its microprocessors. Initially reliant on SOI wafers, which were more expensive, ISi later adapted its Z-RAM technology for bulk CMOS processes, broadening its applicability and shifting focus toward replacing standard DRAM cells. In 2010, the company's intellectual property portfolio was transferred to Micron Technology, and Innovative Silicon ceased operations. The company's websites became inactive, and their URLs were registered to Micron. Co-founder Pierre C. Fazan subsequently joined Micron, while co-founder Serguei Okhonin went on to establish a new startup, ActLight Inc.