Energy Conversion Forms Venture
To Create New Kind of Memory Chip
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
TROY, Mich. -- The former vice chairman of chip maker Micron
Technology Inc. has teamed up with materials concern Energy Conversion
Devices Inc. to form a joint venture that will create a new kind of memory
chip.
Tyler Lowry, 45 years old, will be president and chief executive officer of
the joint venture, Ovonic Universal Memory. Mr. Lowry, an engineer with
60 patents who helped turn Micron of Boise, Idaho, into a juggernaut in
memory chips, says the new memory chip could potentially replace flash
memory chips or dynamic random-access memory chips in personal
computers and other kinds of consumer electronics.
The Ovonic memory uses a special material, called chalcogenide, which
can exist in either a crystalline or amorphous state and can thereby be used
to store the ones and zeros of a digital computer.
Mr. Lowry says his company will try to find a major chip maker as a
partner to bring the chips to market. He says the material could prove to be
cheap to make, fast and as versatile as other chips. Ovonic will face
competition from other start-ups trying to replace memory chips, such as
Micromem Technology Inc. in Santa Fe, N.M.
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