4DS Memory (ASX:4DS) comes crashing down as technology fails

4DS Memory‘s (ASX:4DS) future looks…well…not good. The company has hit forks in the road before, but this time it is different. Rather than proceed to another ‘platform lot’, the company has formally disengaged its collaborations with imec and Infineon, and it has launched a ‘strategic review’. The company’s shares have shed nearly two thirds of their value. 

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4DS Memory has been working on the same technology as Weebit Nano…

4DS had been working on a new memory type called ReRAM that could keep up with the explosive demand for more storage in people’s everyday devices and in data centres. Yes, the same ReRAM Weebit Nano is working on. Only 4DS specialised in ‘Interface Switching ReRAM’, which was supposed to be good for large scale storage applications.

It is common knowledge that chip development takes time and money, and 4DS had been at it since 2014 when it first entered into a joint development agreement with HGST/Western Digital. It also had a design agreement with Infineon to develop a custom ReRAM test chip. 

… but without the results to show for it!

But the last 4 years saw a number of development forks, including delays and underlying technological problems such as with memory cells scaling down. Four years ago, the delays were merely delays. To give 4DS credit, the company never shied away from denying big problems were big problems, using language such as ‘long-term delay’ where it had to be used. It did address some of those problems. For instance, in 2022 4DS encountered challenges with the etch process affecting their PCMO layer. These were addressed by early 2023 through optimisations.

However, the company’s sixth (and presumably last) ‘lot testing’, which was announced in June 2025, revealed unexpected or worse-than-expected results, indicating a setback and likely adjustments to development timelines. Investors have been wondering where to next and following a trading suspension in the last week and the ASX announcement on 5 Seprtember 2025, they now have the answer to that question and it is likely two words: ‘The End’. 

The end?

Don’t take our word for it. 4DS announced a ‘strategic review’ and explicitly said,’ The review includes a pause in development activities and disengagement of collaborations with imec and Infineon Technologies’. Why? The company came to the conclusion that advancing further versions to demonstrate the technology at 20nm would demand greater time and capital without certainty of achieving the performance benchmarks now demanded by global markets. 

‘To remain competitive and to deliver value for shareholders, the Board believes it is in the best interests of the Company to disengage collaboration with imec and Infineon Technologies pending the outcome of a strategic review to ensure that the Company continues to maximise the value of the Company’s technology for its shareholders’.

That sounds pretty much like”The End” to us! Although the company isn’t entirely without hope. Shares were allowed to resume trading and they crashed more than 65% on Friday morning.

The strategic review will evaluate the following:

Source: Company

In other words, the company may ‘start from scratch’ with a new technology or enter a new collaboration. The review is expected to take 3 months.

Bottom line

Investors have every right to be disappointed considering 4DS was arguably more advanced than Weebit Nano (ASX: WBT) at certain points last decade, but 4DS has essentially not gotten anywhere while WBT’s ReRAM is commercialising. But just as is the case with drug development and mining & energy project development, these things take time and money, with no guarantee of success. If you make it, you hit the jackpot and realise riches. But if you don’t, most of the money will be gone. 

We feel for shareholders and hope the company can find a future in some form, even if it is not the one that they would have anticipated for most of the last decade.