New Funding from the NSF

ANAFLASH Receives Additional Funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation

$500,000 will be used to accelerate commercialization of the laboratory-oriented research

[Sunnyvale, CA] Sept. 20, 2023 – ANAFLASH Inc. won a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II supplementary funding for $500,000 to conduct research and development (R&D) on energy efficient non-volatile neural network microprocessor for battery powered edge devices.

With the NSF-funded work, ANAFLASH’s non-volatile solution shall be able to run complex artificial intelligence (AI) tasks energy efficiently by running computation at the place where the necessary data is stored, while it minimizes the idle-mode power dissipation by power gating technology. This solution significantly extends the battery lifetime of the edge devices.

“NSF accelerates the translation of emerging technologies into transformative new products and services,” said Erwin Gianchandani, NSF Assistant Director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships. “We take great pride in funding deep-technology startups and small businesses that will shape science and engineering results into meaningful solutions for today and tomorrow.”

“This additional NSF funding will accelerate commercializing our lab-oriented technology into the market.” said Seung-Hwan Song, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ANAFLASH. “I’m grateful to the NSF for giving us this opportunity to transform our research into a real-world product.”

From its SBIR Phase II project started back in 2020, the company has developed analog compute-in-memory based neural network accelerator for energy efficient smart microprocessors. More information about the NSF-funded work by ANAFLASH can be found from the NSF SBIR/STTR program website. ANAFLASH recently closed funding from the Plug and Play, too.

All proposals submitted to the NSF SBIR/STTR program, also known as America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, undergo a rigorous merit-based review process. Once a small business is awarded a Phase I grant, it becomes eligible to apply for Phase II funding and additional supplements totaling up to $2 million. To get started, startups or entrepreneurs submit a written Project Pitch to see if their technology idea could be a good fit for the program. To learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, visit: https://seedfund.nsf.gov/.

NSF has several programs that help accelerate the translation of research results to practice and provide pathways for researchers, startups and aspiring entrepreneurs to move their ideas from the laboratory to the market and society. To learn more about how NSF helps unlock future technologies for national and societal impact, visit: https://beta.nsf.gov/tip/latest.

About ANAFLASH Inc.: ANAFLASH Inc., headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, is a National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense (DoD) and NASA funded semiconductor technology startup, providing a non-volatile smart microprocessor for energy efficient edge computing devices to run real-time AI tasks securely without cloud access. For more information, visit www.anaflash.com.

About the National Science Foundation's Small Business Programs: America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards more than $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development, helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $9.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.

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