Infineon enters flash memory market--512Mbit flash chip introduced.Infineon Technologies AG (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :IFX IFX - ["Type Reconstruction with First-Class Polymorphic Values", J. O'Toole et al, SIGPLAN Notices 24(7):207-217 (Jul 1989)]. ) (FWB:IFX) has launched the world's first NAND (Not AND) A Boolean logic operation that is true if any single input is false. Two-input NAND gates are often used as the sole logic element on gate array chips, because all Boolean operations can be created from NAND gates. See flash memory. compatible flash chip based on TwinFlash technology. The 512Mbit flash chip has been developed by Infineon Technologies Flash GmbH & Co. KG, a joint venture of Infineon Technologies and Saifun Semiconductors. Initial production has started in Infineon's 200mm DRAM Dresden facility. "Infineon has expanded its memory product portfolio significantly by including flash and can now allocate its memory production capacities flexibly between DRAM and flash," explained Dr. Harald Eggers Eggers may refer to:
TwinFlash is realized in Saifun NROM NROM Nitrided Read Only Memory NROM Nitride Read Only Memory NROM Non Volatile Rom technology, a leading edge non-volatile memory technology developed by Saifun Semiconductors and proven in the past as basis for NOR-Flash and EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) A rewritable memory chip that holds its content without power. Although EEPROMs spawned flash memory, EEPROMs are byte addressable at the write level, whereas flash chips must erase a block of bytes before rewriting. , which stores two (Twin) locally separated bits in one transistor cell. Compared to competing single-bit-per-cell floating gate technologies with equivalent process structures TwinFlash offers 40% smaller die sizes due to its two-bit-per-cell approach and less mask levels resulting in a competitive production cost position. By end of 2004 more than 10,000 wafer starts per month on 170nm technology are planned. The next TwinFlash technology node with feature sizes of only 110nm is being developed to further improve cost position and to enable larger densities of up to 2Gbit. According to Gartner Dataquest the worldwide market for NAND flash memory is expected to grow by 30.8 per cent from US-Dollar 3.36 billion in 2003 to US-Dollar 4.4 billion in 2004. Infineon aims to be among the top 3 players in the NAND market by 2007. "The NAND Flash market is expected to be the fastest growing memory market in the upcoming years," said Dr. Peter Kuecher, President and Managing Director of Infineon Technologies Flash. "Infineon is introducing its TwinFlash product family just in time to benefit from this market condition." The 512Mbit flash chip comes in a TSOP (Thin Small Outline Package) A very thin, plastic, rectangular surface mount chip package with gull-wing pins on its two short sides. TSOPs are about a third as thick as SOJ chips. See gull-wing lead, SOP, SOJ and chip package. package and is targeting the removable solid state storage market with products like SD-, MMC-, Compact-Flash-Cards or memory sticks mainly used for Digital Still Cameras and PDAs. NAND flash is also the preferred storage medium for USB flash drives used for data exchange between PCs and notebooks or sophisticated USB-drives featuring MP3-player or integrated Digital Still Cameras. NAND flash chips are able to transfer data with high speed which allows recording and the replay of sound and video in real time. As these features become more important for the latest mobile phones data flash devices will be increasingly deployed by mobile phone manufacturers. |
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