Imec releases Vertical Compute memory chip in $20.5M deal

In Europe Imec.xpand is a memory chip firm Vertical Compute for a seed sale price of $20.5 million.

It was founded by CEO Sylvain Dubois (former Google) and CTO Sebastien Couet (former amec), today announced that they have successfully closed a seed investment of $20.5 million, or 20 million euros.

The round was led by Imec.xpand and backed by strong investors including Eurazeo, XAnge, Vector Gestion and imec. The investment will support Vertical Compute’s ambition to create integrated memory and technology, and unlock a new generation of AI applications.

Vertical Compute technology will be revolutionary, enabling the next generation of computing to be more efficient and more private. By reducing data movement and bringing big data closer to computing, this innovation ensures energy savings of up to 80%, unlocks human-made AI solutions, and eliminates the need for remote transfers, protecting user privacy.

“Memory technologies face limits in terms of scalability and performance, while the processor continues to evolve. AI’s ever-increasing data access requirements exacerbate this problem, making it necessary to overcome the memory wall to enable new AI innovations. We believe going Vertical is the way to go. achieving a 100X profit,” said Sébastien Couet, CTO of Vertical Compute, in a statement.

Fighting the Memory Wall

The rapid advancement of large-scale artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence is changing almost every industry at an unprecedented rate. However, these large-scale AI models still rely heavily on cloud infrastructure and high-bandwidth memory, which leads to data transmission latency, high power consumption and the transmission of known data to remote servers.

Edge computing can solve these problems, but managing large-scale AI models on mobile phones, PCs or smart home devices faces many challenges, power and challenges.

The biggest problem is the ‘memory wall’. Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), integrated as a CPU or GPU cache, is fast but small and expensive. Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM), the main memory of computers, is large but expensive and energy-consuming. The growth of all memory technologies in terms of volume and performance is slowing down as processor speed and market demand are increasing, creating a major challenge.

This problem is exacerbated by the increasing number of AI applications, which require large amounts of data to be accessed quickly. Overcoming this memory wall is critical to advancing AI thinking.

The innovation is Vertical Compute’s Chiplet Technology

The convergence of large-scale AI and edge computing requires a revolutionary change in the way data is processed. Vertical Compute will take advantage of this opportunity by developing chiplet-based solutions – which take a more traditional approach to chip design – using a new way to store bits in a high-resolution format. The idea behind the Vertical Compute technology was developed by Sebastien Couet, former Director of the Magnetic Program for Imec. A major improvement lies in the integration of dynamic data streams over computational units. It has the potential to surpass DRAM in terms of density, cost and power, by reducing data transfer from centimeters to nanometers. This promising technology, along with an aggressive marketing plan, has led to a new semiconductor industry.

“The increasing number of high-performance applications such as AI output requires a new way of transferring data between computing systems and memory units. Our solution was designed to overcome the growing limitations of traditional memory technologies. We are committed to unlocking the big edge without compromise,” said Sylvain. Dubois, CEO of Vertical Compute, in his statement.

“We want to get the best from all over Europe, and finally put Europe ahead in terms of technology”, said Dubois.

To improve performance and growth

Vertical Compute is based in Louvain-La-Neuve (BE), with its main R&D offices in Leuven (BE), Grenoble (FR) and Nice (FR). The company is recruiting a team of elite engineers to support its ambitious R&D goals and accelerate the development and commercialization of its chiplet-based technology.

This seed investment plan shows confidence in leadership potential and the disruptive potential of this game-changing technology. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Sylvain, Sebastien and their team and help them achieve their goals,” said Tom Vanhoutte from Imec.xpand, in a statement.

“We are confident that, with the support of our teams and the environment, Vertical Compute can disrupt the semiconductor industry. The strong global financial base shows that we are not alone in this belief,” said Patrick Vandenameele, Co-COO at Imec, in a statement.

Vertical Compute was launched in 2024 to solve the memory problem in computers.