New 25Nm Flash NAND Capable Of 8GB Storage

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Corporation and Boise, Idaho-headquartered Micron Technology Inc have jointly developed a new NAND technology which crunches up to 8GB of storage in a single NAND device.

The new technology is expected to make more storage to the new generation mobile consumer devices such as smartphones, personal music and media players (PMP). The new technology also will prove useful as a supplement to the high-performance solid-state drives (SSD).

The entire process works in the 25nm range, making it the world’s smallest NAND technology that has been developed by the two companies. The device measures just 167 square mm which is roughly equal to the central hole found in the CD. Yet, the device has the capacity to store more than 10 times the capacity of a standard CD.

Intel and Micron have together spun off a new joint venture called IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) just for this purpose. Founded in 2006, IMFT’s first mandate was to produce NAND devices using a 50nm process, which was scaled to 34nm in 2008. The latest in line, the 25nm process, makes IMFT a world leader in the industry of semiconductor lithography.

Read more about the latest development in NAND storage technology, here.

IM Flash Technologies Begin Mass Manufacture Of 34nm Flash Memories

Lehi, Utah-based IM Flash Technologies, a joint-venture between Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. announced the launch of the manufacturing process for mass production of 34nm NAND flash memory chips. The production has begun at the company’s Lehi facility in Utah. The company also has a manufacturing unit in Singapore.

The 34nm, 32Gbit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory device is targeted at computing devices with small form factors. The chip itself measures 172sqmm which is smaller than the thumbnail. Stacks of these chips can build capacities of more than 256Gb in machines with form factor of 1.8inch and less.

The breakthrough technology is expected to further drive the integration of solid state drives (SSDs) in existing computers, as users find SSDs faster, less noisy and more reliable than traditional hard disk drives. These chips are being manufactured on 300mm wafers, with each wafer capable of holding 1.6 terabytes of information. A 32Gb chip therefore can store more than 2,000 of hi-res digital photos in a camera, or 1,000 songs on a personal music player like an iPod. Digital camcorder vendors can pack in two 8-die stacked packages of these chips and come out with a video device that they can then claim records between eight and forty hours of footage. 

Read more about the mass manufacture launch here.