SEMIFIVE and ICY Tech Announce Successful Tape-Out of 8nm eMRAM-Based Edge AI SoC

SEMIFIVE and ICY Tech, a Chinese AI semiconductor company have completed the tape-out of a next-generation Edge AI SoC developed using Samsung Foundry’s 8nm (8LPU) embedded Magnetic Random Access Memory (eMRAM) technology. The project targets the first commercial deployment of 8nm eMRAM technology in Asia.

This marks SEMIFIVE’s first ASIC design project utilizing eMRAM. The SoC integrates eMRAM into an Edge AI accelerator and is designed to support on-device inference for models with up to 2 billion (2B) parameters.

eMRAM offers a smaller bit cell than SRAM for higher data density in the same area. Unlike DRAM, it requires no periodic refresh operations, which reduces power consumption. Its non-volatile nature allows data retention when power is removed, making it suitable for power- and area-constrained edge devices.

ICY Tech, originating from the Applied Magnetism Center at Peking University’s School of Physics, contributed expertise in magnetism and spintronics, including MRAM bit-cell and peripheral circuits, along with patented accelerator designs for high-bandwidth readout and in-situ matrix-vector multiplication (GEMV).

SEMIFIVE, a Design Solution Partner in the Samsung Foundry SAFE ecosystem, provided comprehensive ASIC design services. The companies combined ICY Tech’s Processing Near Memory (PNM) technology with S...