14 DAY TRIAL // The two companies announced yesterday an 8 Gbit NAND flash memory chip produced with 70 nm process technology. This could be the start of a "beautiful relationship" which will result in a new wave of GB chips.
This prototype chip has an areal density of 20 billion transistors per square inch of silicon and is about 5% larger than the previous 4 Gb chip, produced with 90 nanometer processing.
SanDisk claims this technology allows a write speed of 6 MBps and a read speed of 60 MBps, which translates intro a 40% increase from current chips available on the market, and the chips store two bits per cell, if you just need to know the exact details.
Samsung claimed last September it has developed a 60 nanometre eight gigabit NAND flash memory device. That means an approximately 30 per cent reduction in cell size over its existing 70 nano four gigabit NAND flash it developed in 2003.
Production of the new NAND Flash developed by Toshiba and SanDisk will begin this summer with broad market adoption expected to follow during 2006.
The memory will be used mainly for data storage cards, but capacities of Flash cards were not detailed. The new technology has enough room to drive Flash cards from a current maximum capacity of 8 GByte beyond 20 GByte. The first stage of the actual product will include 2 Gb modules, but prices and launch dates were not disclosed.