February 01 2010

Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc. on Monday plan to announce the world's first 25-nanometer NAND flash technology, which will make it possible to double the storage capacity of devices like smartphones, music and media players, and solid-state drives (SSD) without making the products themselves any bigger.

Intel is currently shipping samples to equipment manufacturers of an 8GB NAND die created with its latest lithography. Lithography is the process of creating cells and transistors in silicon, which are used to store bits of data. The smaller they are, the more that can fit on a single NAND flash chip -- and the greater the storage capacity.

The companies plan to begin mass production of the 8GB die next quarter. "This will help speed the adoption of solid-state drive solutions for computing," Tom Rampone, vice president and general manager of Intel's NAND solutions group, said in a statement.

The new 25nm 8GB die, which measures 0.35-in. by 0.74-in., is made up of many, smaller 64Gbit NAND chips. The new NAND technology makes it possible to build products using half as many chips as is possible with the current 34nm lithography technology, allowing for smaller, higher-density designs. For example, a 256GB SSD can be built with 32 of the 8GB NAND flash dies instead of 64 dies; a 32GB smartphone needs just four dies; and a 16GB flash card requires only two. The change also cuts the overall cost to produce mobile products.

The die is "small enough to fit through the hole in the middle of a compact disc, yet packs more than 10 times the data capacity of that CD," Troy Winslow, director of NAND marketing at Intel, said. A standard CD holds 700MB of data.

Intel said its 25nm lithography process is not only the smallest for NAND flash memory technology but it's also the overall smallest semiconductor technology in existence. That means its manufacturing process will lend itself to advances in the more general area of consumer electronics and computing applications.

Source:-http://www.computerworld.com