• Enabling on-device inference with up to 2 billion (2B) parameters, accelerating expansion into ultra-low-power edge AI markets such as AI PCs and humanoid robots

SEOUL, South Korea, May 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SEMIFIVE, a leading global provider of custom AI semiconductor (ASIC) solutions, and ICY Tech (寒序科技), a Chinese AI semiconductor company, today announced the successful tape-out of next-generation Edge AI SoC jointly developed utilizing Samsung Foundry’s 8nm (8LPU) embedded Magnetic Random Access Memory (eMRAM) technology. This marks a significant milestone toward the first commercial deployment of 8nm eMRAM technology in Asia.

This collaboration represents SEMIFIVE’s first ASIC design project leveraging eMRAM technology. By integrating eMRAM into an Edge AI accelerator, the company aims to reinforce  its technical leadership in the ultra-low-power, high-performance inference market.

Compared to SRAM, eMRAM features a smaller bit cell, enabling higher data density within the same area. Unlike DRAM, it does not require periodic refresh operations, significantly reducing power consumption. With its non-volatile characteristics that retain data even when power is removed, eMRAM is widely regarded as a “universal memory” particularly well-suited for environments with constraints on power and area, such as edge devices.

Originating from the Applied Magnetism Center of the School of Physics at Peking University, ICY Tech brings deep insight and extensive experience in magnetism and spintronics for AI inference scenarios. Additionally, the company possesses globally leading, uniquely patented accelerator designs for high-bandwidth readout and in-situ matrix-vector multiplication (GEMV).

SEMIFIVE is a key Design Solution Partner (DSP) in the Samsung Foundry SAFE™ ecosystem and a global AI ASIC specialist with a proven track record of successfully delivering advanced custom semiconductor projects ranging from AI/HPC to Edge AI. The company provides comprehensive engineering services from spec consulting to mass production, serving a broad range of customers including fabless companies, service providers, and system OEMs.

For this project, SEMIFIVE provided comprehensive ASIC design services and transformed, ICY Tech’s novel architecture into production-ready silicon. By integrating ICY Tech’s Processing Near Memory (PNM) technology with SEMIFIVE’s proprietary SoC design platform, the two companies developed an optimized architecture capable of high-speed, on-device inference for models with up to 2B parameters in edge environments. This enables operation— without any network connectivity. At the 2B-parameter scale, practical AI tasks such as text summarization, translation, and conversational inference become feasible on-device, a capability that has been challenging to achieve with conventional SRAM-based edge AI chips due to physical limitations in die area and power.

This architecture is designed for edge devices operating in offline environments, including AI PCs, private AI agents, and humanoid robots. Target applications encompass robotics (physical AI), automotive semiconductors (such as autonomous driving and digital cockpits), and smart devices.

“This collaboration is a highly challenging project to bring a spintronics-based AI inference architecture into silicon using Samsung Foundry’s 8nm (8LPU) process. By fully integrating the non-volatile and ultra-low-power characteristics of eMRAM into AI accelerators, we believe this will set a new milestone for edge AI semiconductors,” said Yves Zhu, CEO of ICY Tech. “With SEMIFIVE’s proven comprehensive ASIC design capabilities, ICY Tech’s accelerator architecture design expertise, and Samsung Foundry’s advanced node technology, we are confident this project will establish a new standard for performance and power efficiency that surpasses the limitations of existing architectures in the global AI inference market.”

“In the AI era, semiconductors are rapidly shifting from off-the-shelf components to custom-built solutions tailored to specific needs. As the Edge AI market expands, the architectures requested by customers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and diverse,” said Brandon Cho, CEO and co-founder of SEMIFIVE. “As ASIC design involving next-generation memories like eMRAM gains momentum, the role of a specialized partner managing the entire process becomes vital. As a key partner in the Samsung Foundry SAFE™ ecosystem, SEMIFIVE has successfully executed numerous AI, HPC, and Edge AI projects. Through our partnership with ICY Tech, we are proud to expand our portfolio into cutting-edge memory-based ASIC design.”