Nice Tech, No Dough

In this space, I have talked about MRAM, or magnetic random access memory, in relation to NVE Corp. Nathan Tinker, of the Nanobusiness Alliance, alerted me to another player in this area, Micromem [MMTIF.OB].
NVE’s technology employs the giant magnetoresistance effect. Micromem’s devices involve something called a Hall sensor. Without getting too technical, a Hall sensor senses the direction of magnetic field and stores that information. The concept has been around for awhile, but Micromem appears to be the first to apply it to computer memory. The company, which is Canadian, has licensed its IP from the University of Toronto, mostly from the laboratory of Henry Ruda, their lead scientist.

For it adherents, MRAM is sort of the holy grail, capable of replacing all current forms of memory, a $30 billion market or so. Not everyone is so confident; Cypress Semiconductor terminated its own program, saying that MRAM would never be used in more than niche markets. Micromem is starting small, building one bit prototypes with the hope of cracking the RFID market.

The Chief Technology Officer for Micromem is Cynthia Kuper, who has a solid pedigree. She’s done postdoctoral work in Richard Smalley’s lab at Rice and is the founder of Versilant Nanotechnologies.

The immediate problem with Micromem would seem to be that they have no money. Their latest SEC filing which covers the period through October 2005, shows a net capital deficit. From that it would appear that they are running on fumes, and only a timely infusion of capital will keep the company going. Reportedly, they are seeking this through private placements with high wealth individuals rather than venture capital firms.