SST: LPC FLASH MEMORY SUPPORT FOR UPCOMING AMD OPTERON AND EIGHTH-GEN AMD ATHLON PROCESSORS.

SST has announced that its LPC (Low Pin Count)-Bus Interface flash memory products will support the AMD Opteron and eighth-generation AMD Athlon processor-based platforms. The AMD Opteron processor, with the "Hammer" core, is a 64-bit processor that builds upon the x86 instruction set and can also fully support 32-bit computing.

SST's SuperFlash-based, LPC flash memory products are used to store system BIOS and embedded OS/application software. SST's LPC products enable chipset vendors to eliminate the ISA-bus and other "legacy" features in their designs, thereby providing consumers with lower cost, more reliable and better performing PCs.

"Supporting the AMD Opteron processor and its x86-64 technology validates SST's position as a market leader in the PC BIOS industry, both from a market share and technology perspective," said Michael Briner, senior vice president, Application Specific Product Group, SST. "SST was the first major flash memory company with LPC flash products in production, and we are committed to continuing our support for highly innovative PC architectures such as the AMD Opteron and eighth-generation AMD Athlon processor-based platforms."

"The high-performance and reliable SST LPC flash memory products are a good complement for our eighth-generation AMD platforms," said Rich Heye, vice president platform engineering and infrastructure, AMD. "Key innovations of the upcoming AMD Opteron and eighth-generation AMD Athlon processors, including the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport technology, combined with BIOS support from SST's LPC flash products will ultimately benefit consumers with more reliable and easier-to-use computing systems."

SST's LPC flash memory products include the SST49LF020A (a 2 Mbit device); the SST49LF030A (a 3 Mbit device); the SST49LF040A (a 4 Mbit device); and the SST49LF080A (an 8 Mbit device). With a wide range of densities, SST's LPC flash products support budget to mid-range PCs and notebooks, as well as high-end servers and workstations. SST's LPC flash products are based on the core feature set of the company's MPF (Multi-Purpose Flash) family -- a family that was created using SST's proprietary SoftPartition uniform 4 KByte-sector architecture and the simple CMOS-compatible SuperFlash manufacturing process. The LPC flash products also significantly improve performance and reliability, while lowering power consumption and using less energy during erase and program operations, when compared to alternative flash memory technologies.

SST's SuperFlash technology is a NOR type, split-gate cell architecture which uses a reliable thick-oxide process with fewer manufacturing steps resulting in a low-cost, nonvolatile memory solution with excellent data retention and higher reliability. The split-gate NOR SuperFlash architecture facilitates a simple and flexible design suitable for high performance, high reliability, small or medium sector size, in- or off-system programming and a variety of densities, all in a single CMOS-compatible technology.