Weebit Nano shares rocket on NVM licensing deal

The news: Shares in memory technology developer Weebit Nano have soared in early trading after it inked a licensing deal with South Korean chip foundry DB HiTek. Under the deal, DB HiTek gains a non-exclusive license to manufacture Weebit's ReRAM as embedded non-volatile memory in customers' chip systems designs.

The numbers: DB HiTek is a chip foundry with annual revenues of more than $2 billion. Weebit Nano has not disclosed the size of the deal. Weebit shares were trading 13.5% higher at 10:55am AEDT, fetching $3.53.

The context: Non-volatile memory such as ROM or NVRAM can retain stored information even after power is removed. Volatile memory, such as RAM, needs constant power to retain data.

What they said: "We are seeing increasingly strong market demand for Weebit ReRAM and expect to sign further commercial agreements, including many of the top-tier foundries and integrated device manufacturers as well as fabless design companies, in the coming months," Weebit Nano chief executive Coby Hanoch said in a statement.