FMC and the EIC Accelerator: Europe's Bet on a New Memory Chip

FMC, the Ferroelectric Memory Company, was founded in Dresden in 2016 to commercialise ferroelectric memory based on hafnium oxide, developed partly at TU Dresden and the Namlab laboratory, which stores data without power. FMC says its DRAM+ memory is as fast as DRAM, the working memory in every computer, but keeps its data when switched off. Its EIC Accelerator project, Fe-NVRAM, received an EU contribution of €2,499,999 towards a total cost of €5,212,188 and ran from April 2024 to September 2025, according to CORDIS. Its stated vision was to "become the first EU memory company" and set up production in Europe. CORDIS lists the project as closed but has published no results.

In November 2025 FMC raised €100 million: €77 million in a Series C equity round led by HV Capital, the DeepTech & Climate Fonds and Vsquared Ventures, and €23 million in public funds including the EU's IPCEI microelectronics programme and the EIC, according to FMC. In January 2026 heise online reported that "so far there are no memory chips with ferroelectric cells from FMC": its technology could only be built into other chips as embedded memory, in cooperation with GlobalFoundries, and its plans for a fab near Magdeburg depended on financing, according to heise online.

Where FMC Stands Now

In 2026 FMC hired a chief technology officer, a chief operating officer to lead the fab plans, a senior vice president of technology and manufacturing and design leaders, and named former Infineon chief executive Reinhard Ploss chairman of its advisory board. Former TSMC general counsel Richard Thurston joined as a senior advisor, and in September 2026 DTCF's Torsten Löffler, who had sat on FMC's board, became chief strategy officer, according to FMC. The company describes itself as fabless, with centres in Dresden, Italy and France. In September 2026 it announced a collaboration with EUCLYD, an Eindhoven AI hardware company, according to FMC.

The Technology: Memory That Remembers

DRAM loses its data when power is cut and must be refreshed constantly, which costs energy. Ferroelectric memory keeps its state without power. Such chips have existed for decades, heise online notes, but have never displaced DRAM or NAND flash in the largest markets, and Micron and Intel have both presented ferroelectric memory research. FMC has not published the cell size, capacity or data rate of its planned chips. Its investor eCAPITAL said in November 2025 that "pilot results confirm design wins with leading OEMs", without naming them.

What the EIC Award Promised, and What the Record Shows

Fe-NVRAM promised fast, low-cost non-volatile memory made in Europe and production facilities to match. The project closed in September 2025. The record shows a company that won major new funding and built a senior team, but no memory product on the market and no production facility financed.

1. Follow-on fundingDelivered€100M, 2025.
2. Standalone memory productNot yetNone on sale.
3. European productionNot yetFab unfunded.
4. Customer design winsUnverifiedNone named.

The Money

FMC lost €4.51 million in 2023 and €5.87 million in 2024, and had equity of €9.47 million at the end of 2024, according to its accounts via North Data. It has relied heavily on public money: German and EU bodies awarded it €26.5 million from 2017 to 2024, including an €18.5 million federal grant in 2022, before the further €23 million announced in 2025.

What Cannot Be Checked

Why Europe Should Care

The CORDIS summary puts it bluntly: there are no memory manufacturers in Europe. FMC's technology draws partly on Namlab, a Dresden laboratory in which Qimonda, the DRAM maker that failed in 2009, was involved, heise online notes. Taxpayers have now put tens of millions into bringing memory back; the product that would justify it has yet to appear.

The Verdict

FMC and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.