Floadia Corporation headquartered in Kodaira-shi, Tokyo, has raised 
approximately 1.2 billion yen in the Series C round of financing. Using this 
fund, Floadia will expand its existing embedded memory business and develop a 
new semiconductor memory technology that can make a breakthrough in AI edge 
computing with ultra-low power consumption.

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Teijin Co., Ltd. took the lead position for the Series C and undertook a total 
of 530 million yen together with TEL Venture Capital Inc., a wholly owned 
subsidiary of Tokyo Electron, in the first closing. In the second closing, 
Miyako Capital, Marubeni Ventures, NEC Capital Solutions, and IDATEN Ventures 
undertook a total of 510 million yen. Furthermore, Japan Finance Corporation 
has also provided a loan of 180 million yen.

Floadia was founded in 2011 by veteran engineers who left Renesas Electronics. 
The company licenses its intellectual property (IP), including the 
manufacturing process and circuit design which enable embedded non-volatile 
memory production. Its memories are mainly used for micro-computers, power 
semiconductors, sensors and other semiconductor devices, and significantly 
reduce power consumption and cost, with auto-grade heat endurance capability. 
Floadia's non-volatile memory technology is characterized by extremely low 
power consumption for write/erase operations per memory cell, which is 
one-millionth of that of competitors*. Furthermore, the simple manufacturing 
process enables customers to minimize the development time and reduce the 
additional manufacturing cost to one-third of that of competitors. Floadia's 
memories have been utilized in in-vehicle microcomputers and also adopted in 
Toshiba microcontrollers. They are also used for smartphone components 
manufactured by Taiwanese foundries.

* Floadia's non-volatile memory uses FN tunneling so that power consumption for 
write/erase operations per memory cell is one-millionth of that of competitors 
using a hot carrier method.

Floadia's memories can also be embedded without changing other already existing 
IP designs, making analog/digital integration much easier. As the evolution of 
5G smart phones, smart watches, wireless earphones and various battery-powered 
IoT devices continues, their power consumption, device size and cost will 
become more essential than ever. In order to further reduce device size and 
cost, there is an increasing trend to integrate digital circuits and analog 
circuits on the same chip. Currently, Floadia is working with major foundries 
to transplant its technology on the 130nm BCD Plus (Bipolar / CMOS / DMOS 
integrated) platform, and plans mass production from the early part of 2021. 

Taking advantage of this funding, Floadia will also accelerate the development 
of AI edge computing devices that can significantly reduce power consumption.

Currently, AI computing is mainly performed using large-scale data center 
servers on the cloud side. It is said that AI calculation in the cloud requires 
enormous power and that there are also data security issues. On the other hand, 
for AI computing that requires real-time transaction in advanced machines such 
as autonomous cars and drones, it is essential to perform AI computing on the 
edge side without connecting to the cloud. By adopting Floadia's memory 
technology, it is possible to significantly enhance the power efficiency of AI 
calculation 100 to 1,000 times better. 

Floadia had raised about 2.4 billion yen from INCJ (Japanese government fund), 
UMC Capital (Taiwanese foundry's affiliate), Faraday Technology (Taiwanese ASIC 
design company), etc. The total amount of funds raised up to now is 
approximately 3.6 billion yen.


Source: Floadia Corporation