Monday, November 24th 2008
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Intel, Micron Move into Mass Production with 34nm NAND Flash
Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. today announced mass production of their jointly developed 34nm, 32 gigabit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory device. Developed and manufactured by the companies' NAND flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), the process technology is the most advanced process available on the market and enables the industry's only monolithic 32 Gb NAND chip that fits into a standard 48-lead thin small-outline package (TSOP). The companies are ahead of schedule with 34nm NAND production, expecting their Lehi facility to have transitioned more than 50 percent of its capacity to 34nm by year's end.
"We have made great strides in NAND process capability and are now in a leadership role with 34nm production," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's Memory Group. "The tiny 34nm, 32 Gb chip enables our customers to easily increase their NAND storage capacity for a number of consumer and computing products."
"The results from IMFT continue to exceed our expectations," said Randy Wilhelm, vice president and general manager, Intel NAND Solutions Group. "With such clear leadership in NAND manufacturing, we are able to offer our customers NAND solutions with great value, performance and low power."
The 34nm, 32 Gb chips are manufactured on 300 mm wafers. Measuring just 172mm², less than the size of a thumbnail, the 34nm, 32 Gb chip will cost-effectively enable high-density solid-state storage in small form factor applications including digital cameras, personal music players and digital camcorders. Additionally, the chip will enable more cost-effective solid-state drives, dramatically increasing their current storage capacity.
The companies also plan to begin sampling lower density multi-level cell (MLC) and single-level cell (SLC) products using the 34nm process technology in early 2009.
Source:
Intel
"We have made great strides in NAND process capability and are now in a leadership role with 34nm production," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's Memory Group. "The tiny 34nm, 32 Gb chip enables our customers to easily increase their NAND storage capacity for a number of consumer and computing products."
"The results from IMFT continue to exceed our expectations," said Randy Wilhelm, vice president and general manager, Intel NAND Solutions Group. "With such clear leadership in NAND manufacturing, we are able to offer our customers NAND solutions with great value, performance and low power."
The 34nm, 32 Gb chips are manufactured on 300 mm wafers. Measuring just 172mm², less than the size of a thumbnail, the 34nm, 32 Gb chip will cost-effectively enable high-density solid-state storage in small form factor applications including digital cameras, personal music players and digital camcorders. Additionally, the chip will enable more cost-effective solid-state drives, dramatically increasing their current storage capacity.
The companies also plan to begin sampling lower density multi-level cell (MLC) and single-level cell (SLC) products using the 34nm process technology in early 2009.
5 Comments on Intel, Micron Move into Mass Production with 34nm NAND Flash
34nm eh? The roadmap was for CPU to go 32nm, but everyone is now saying that physically, 32nm is going to be very very difficult to achieve. So 34nm is possible at low complexity, low speed (relative). Perhaps they will meet the 32nm target for CPUs. Or perhaps they will discover it's a bit too difficult with current methods, and will go from 45nm to 38nm or something similar. (45nm to 38nm is a factor of 2, areal density, and 45nm to 38nm is a factor of 1.4 approx sqr root 2).
My educated guess would be that Intel will tick-tock through 38nm first on CPUs before going 32nm.