News

posted on 23 June 2008 09:18

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In a Tech-on interview a Numonyx executive has claimed NAND miniaturisation will decrease reliability. He also said phase-change memory (PCM) has a bit-level writing function.

Numonyx is the NOR-flash manufacturing joint venture established by Intel and STMicroselectronics, which is in third place in the overall non-volatile memory market behind Samsung (1) and Toshiba (2). It is developing PCM as a candidate to replace both flash and DRAM.

The executive, Glen Hawk, VP and GM of Numonyx' Embedded Business Group, says that NAND flash won't replace NOR flash in mobile devices because NOR flash has an execute-in-place or direct execution capability, thus saving DRAM, that NAND flash does not. With space inside mobile devices limited this capability should ensure the continuation of NOR flash use in mobile phones, etc.

He also believes that NAND miniaturization will bring along with it increased error rates necessitating effort to counter the decreased reliability. This will be exacerbated with multi-level cell (MLC) technology. PCM has several generations of shrinkage ahead of it with no such problems forecast.

Numonyx is sampling a 128Mbit PCM device but Hawk reckons it will take a year or few before PCM integration levels match current NAND and NOR flash levels.

He said that PCM rewites data at the bit-level with no need to rewrite entire blocks as is the case with flash. It makes for simpler system design at this level.

More here.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}