Goodram/Wilk Elektronik and Phison Plan to Join Forces

Wilk Elektronik SA, owner of the Goodram brand and a DRAM memory producer in Europe with over 30 years of expertise, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Taiwan’s Phison Electronics Corp.

The planned collaboration will be based on a joint venture with Wilk as the majority shareholder. The new entity will focus on developing and designing secure firmware for NAND flash storage products, paving the way for Europe to establish a strategic place in the global semiconductor market through firmware expertise.

In addition to firmware development, the products of the newly established company, based on unique technology and IP, will allow, for example, inference of individual AI models on a closed infrastructure for companies from various industries where data security is key.

The MoU was signed at the Polish Office in Taipei during the June Computex fair. The agreement envisages cooperation in several key areas, including the creation of an R&D team. This team, through extensive knowledge transfer from partners, will develop competencies in firmware development, the most crucial element managing NAND flash for SSDs and NAND storage products. This will enable the creation of secure specialized, solutions tailored to the advanced needs of industrial applications used in automation, transport, the medical and defense sectors.

Firmware, the Underappreciated yet Key Component of Secure Devices
“The planned partnership with Phison Electronics opens new perspectives for Wilk Elektronik,” emphasizes Wiesław Wilk, president, Wilk. “The MoU centered around firmware development is consistent with our long-term strategy of investing in innovation and developing technologies. Firmware is the key software component connecting the device‘s hardware with the operating system level software. Asia has made great strides in establishing superiority in the global hardware market thanks to its operational efficiency. The US has for a long time lead with its operating system level software. Firmware is becoming an increasingly important component and area where Europe still has an opportunity to build the center of competence thus becoming an essential player in the global semiconductor market. The Polish company will thus become a key link in the development of the semiconductor supply chain in Europe.“

“Phison has been collaborating with Wilk Elektronikfor almost 2 decades now,” highlights K.S. Pua, CEO, Phison. “Initially based on consumer storage production, our partnership has expanded in recent years to include storage applications in industrial, transport, and automation systems. The signed MoU demonstrates not only the continuous improvement and transformation of Wilk Elektronik, but also Phison’s commitment to supporting its long-term partner. The prospective cooperation will strengthen the trust foundation between Phison and Wilk Elektronik and promote the development of our cooperation in the European market.“

Goal: Technological Sovereignty of Europe
This partnership is also crucial for the entire European electronics and technology sector, which is moving towards sovereignty in the area of manufacturing and patents. In light of the European Commission’s European Chips Act, the EU’s objective is to ensure the security and resilience of the EU supply chain and technological leadership in semiconductor technology and applications. The MoU assumes that the majority shareholder of the joint venture will be Wilk, ensuring that the intellectual property developed will be firmly anchored in Poland, paving the way for future EU semiconductor sovereignty. 

“Continuous innovation and the development of strategic technologies are 2 pillars of the modern economy. Thanks to the planned joint venture between Wilk and Phison, Poland not only gains a technological advantage, but also a new platform for international cooperation. This partnership opens up new opportunities for the semiconductor industry, provides a basis for further development and strengthens Poland’s position on the global market,” said Cyryl Kozaczewski, director of the Polish Office in Taipei, Taiwan.

aiDAPTIV+, Revolution in AI Computing
The axis of the MoU also extends to Phison’s aiDAPTIV+ technology, which combines AI frameworks with specialized SSDs. This enables the creation of local computational centers for fine-tuning large AI models. This solution allows, for example, building own servers capable of fine-tuning large language models (LLMs), eliminating the need to transfer confidential data to external entities. This is particularly significant for strategic or infrastructural entities requiring the highest data security standards.

“The advantage of aiDAPTIV+ technology is its low cost of implementation and use compared to traditional GPU cluster-based solutions,” said Monika Wilk, director of strategy and development, Wilk. “This technology breaks down the cost barrier and ensures that SMBs and research units are not excluded from the technological advances that come with the accelerating development of AI in business. This opens up new opportunities for innovation and progress in a wide range of sectors, especially where the data being processed is confidential or secret, such as the medical and legal industries. It is also a key consideration for those working in the wider defense and government sectors.“

Wilk – 3 Decades of Innovation in Poland
It is a family-owned Polish company with more than 30 years of experience in the memory and storage market. It is also the only manufacturer of computer DRAMs in Europe. Multi-million dollar investments in R&D have made the firm a major player in the European memory and storage market, with revenues in the hundreds of millions of zlotys. It provides solutions for consumers, the gaming sector and advanced industrial applications. Goodram and IRDM branded computer DRAMs, SSDs and NAND flash storage are currently available in 47 markets worldwide.

Glossary

1. Memorandum of Understanding (MoU): As per Wikipedia, a type of agreement between 2 (bilateral) or more (multilateral) parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used either in cases where parties do not imply a legal commitment or in situations where the parties cannot create a legally enforceable agreement. It is a more formal alternative to a gentlemen agreement.
2. Semiconductor: a material that, under certain conditions, exhibits properties of either an insulator or an electrical conductor. Various electronic components, including integrated circuits such as memory and microprocessors, are made from semiconductors.
3. DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory): the computer’s operating memory, into which programs are loaded when they are started and which is used for temporarily storing program data.
4. NAND Flash: a type of storage containing NAND Flash cells, used in electronic devices for storage, characterized by high capacity and speed. It is non-volatile memory, meaning it does not lose stored information when the power is turned off.
5. SSD (Solid State Drive): a type of mass storage that uses NAND Flash storage to store data. Unlike traditional HDDs, which store data on magnetic rotating disks, SSDs have no moving parts, providing much faster data access, greater shock resistance, and lower power consumption.
6. aiDAPTIV+: innovative AI technology enabling the creation of local computing centers. These centers are used for domain-specific learning and training large AI models such as LLMs using confidential or private data. The core of the solution is specialized SSDs and libraries that link the runtime environment (frameworks) with user applications like LLMs. aiDAPTIV+ allows working with AI models that exceed the capacity of GPU VRAM by multiple times. This technology reduces costs and increases data privacy by eliminating the need to transfer data outside local servers.
7. AI Framework: a set of tools and programming libraries used for building and training AI models, with which aiDAPTIV+ technology integrates to extend their possible applications.
8. GPU (Graphics Processing Unit): a graphics processor used in computers for image and video processing, and due to its parallel computing capabilities, for applications related to ML and AI