Everspin Technologies, the maker of a new kind of memory chip, has named chip veteran Aurangzeb Khan as chief executive.
The Chandler, Ariz.-based company designs magnetic random access memory chips, which use magnets to store data. The company started researching the MRAM technology some years ago as part of Motorola, which then spun out all of its chip operations as Freescale Semiconductor in 2004. Everpspin then spun out of Freescale the middle of last year.
The company shipped its first MRAM chips in 2006. Now it has more than 50 products and is shipping to customers in the storage, industrial automation, gaming, energy management, communications, consumer, transportation and avionics markets.
Qimonda just filed for bankruptcy protection. But Everspin is in a pretty unique and differentiated space.
Khan previously co-founded Altius Solutions, which was acquired by Simplex Solutions. He also served as an executive at Cadence Design Systems. Everspin's backers include New Venture Partners, Sigma Partners, Lux Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Epic Ventures. The company has raised $20 million.
Saied Tehrani was previously running the company. He will be chief operating officer. The company has 55 employees. Everspin is the only company with MRAM chips in the market. Others working on it include Toshiba, IBM, Samsung and NEC.