4DS Memory Ltd (ASX: 4DS) shares are out of action on Wednesday.
That's because before the market open, the ASX All Ords stock requested a trading halt
Why is this ASX All Ords stock halted?
The semiconductor technology company's shares were slammed into a trading halt this morning after it decided to try and raise capital again.
Last month, 4DS Memory announced plans to raise capital but failed to garner sufficient interest and pulled out. It said:
After consultation with various parties, the Company has elected not to proceed with a capital raise because the offering wasn't reflective of what the Board considers is in the best interest of shareholders.
At the time, it revealed that it "intends to raise capital in early 2025 to enable it to fund its obligations under the Design Agreement it has recently entered into with Infineon Technologies LLC, which will design a custom ReRAM memory test chip for 4DS."
Unfortunately, since then, the ASX All Ords stock has been in freefall and is down almost 50% since the December capital raising trading halt. In fact, its shares ended yesterday at a 52-week low, which is arguably the worst possible time to raise funds.
No details have been released relating to the new proposed capital raising, but it will be interesting to see how this new raising could be "reflective of what the Board considers is in the best interest of shareholders" after such a sizeable decline since last month.
An update on the capital raising is expected on Friday, when the ASX All Ords stock is scheduled to return to trade.
Other news
4DS Memory has also announced that it has successfully completed characterisation and testing of the Fifth Platform Lot.
The company and the imec engineering team will now focus on the manufacture of the Sixth Platform Lot 20nm memory cell array.
Management notes that the Sixth Platform Lot will scale the 4DS memory cell array from 60nm cells to 20nm cells (9x smaller) and position the 4DS ReRAM technology as a potential generational memory. It said:
These new learnings and optimizations from the Fifth Platform Lot are critically important for the successful processing of 4DS's first 20nm memory cell array in the Sixth Platform Lot, expected to be manufactured and analysed in 1H 2025. If the Company is successful in scaling from a 60nm memory cell to 20nm memory cell array, then the Sixth Platform Lot will position 4DS' area-based Interface Switching ReRAM technology as a potential generational memory.