Samsung mass producing 16Gb NAND flash memory

Posted by Dennis Sellers Apr 29, 2007 at 10:48pm

Samsung Electronics has begun mass producing 16GB NAND flash, the highest capacity memory chip now available. The company said it will fabricate the devices in 51 nanometers (nm).

“In rolling out the densest NAND flash in the world, we are throwing open the gates to a much wider playing field for flash-driven consumer electronics,” says Jim Elliott, director, flash marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. “To minimize production costs and improve performance, we have applied the finest process technology a ‘half generation’ ahead of the industry, which is introducing 55nm and higher.”

The new 16GB chip which has a multi-level cell (MLC) structure can facilitate capacity expansion by offering 16GB of memory in a single memory card. What’s more, by applying the new process technology, Samsung has accelerated the chip’s read and write speeds by approximately 80 percent over current MLC data processing speeds, according to Elliott.

NAND flash memory reads and writes data in units called “pages.” The 60nm NAND flash memory is designed with a 2KB page size, but the 51nm 16GB version can process data in 4KB pages, nearly doubling the data rate. The product also maintains the same 4-bit error-correcting code (ECC) capability as that of 60nm NAND, allowing customers to use existing system interfaces with only minor firmware upgrades.

Samsung will offer an optimized suite of Flash software and firmware-incorporated storage devices for music phones and MP3 players to support 4KB pages. It also will provide a multi-plane performance optimization feature and wear-leveling. Memory cards and MP3 controllers to support the 4KB-page are already available.

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