LONDON " Flash memory specialist and NOR market leader Spansion Inc. will start sampling later this year its ORNAND2 MirrorBit technology based NAND devices, targeting handset makers.
The company says the parts support 25 percent faster write performance and up to twice the read performance at a significantly smaller die size than today's floating-gate NAND.
The technology features 25 percent fewer process steps than the first generation MirrorBit ORNAND and MirrorBit NOR solutions.
The diversification into the fircely competitive NAND sector was announced Tuesday (September 2) at the opening of Spansion's Security and Advanced Technology Division headquarters in Agrate, near Milan, Italy.
Bertrand Cambou, president and CEO of Spansion told EE Times Europe said the initial 1Gbit, 2Gbit and 4Gbit density versions of ORNAND2, with an embedded 8051 MCU, is targeted at high value, high margin and embedded applications.
"It is true that the NAND market is highly price competitive, but we are not addressing the high volume segments such as SSDs, MP3 players, and memory sticks, where quality is not so crucial."
Cambou stressed "we have no appetite for the over-supplied commodities end of the NAND flash business."
The initial parts, made on a 43-nm technology, will be made by Spansion at a fab in California. "We plan to transfer the technology to our Chinese fab partner, SMIC, by December, and they will be responsible for volume production, which should be rolling by the middle of 2009. Over time, we plan to shift the ORNAND2 devices to a 32nm process."
Cambou said he expects the "sweet spot" for the ORNAND2 range to be the 2GBit part, but the company will in time offer an 8Gbit MCP version for those that require higher densities.
The MirrorBit ORNAND2 products are based on a single-level cell (SLC) architecture that operates at 3V.
Related Articles
Spansion creates Flash memory security division in Italy
Spansion, SMIC ink 43-nm foundry deal
Spansion cut 500 jobs, expands in Asia
