8Gbit NAND flash starts mass production

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd recently announced the mass production of an 8Gbit NAND flash memory device, which promises a much larger and more affordable storage density for consumer and mobile applications such as mobile phones, MP3 players and gaming consoles. The high-density multi-level-cell (MLC) memory is being produced with 60nm process technology, touted to be the smallest used today.

Mass production of the new 8Gbit chip allows Samsung to offer an 8Gbyte solution by vertically stacking two 4Gbyte packages, each package carrying a vertical stack of four 8Gbit dies. The 8Gbyte NAND, which can store 2,000 MP3 files or 225 minutes of DVD-quality video, is expected to be available in Q3 2006.

Samsung plans to further use its 8Gbit NAND flash memory chip in the company's high-density MLC NAND, called moviNAND, to produce a 2Gbyte-level NAND market solution. The recently introduced moviNAND combines NAND flash memory and a NAND controller and can be embedded in mobile handsets to accommodate the high data storage requirements that accompany the increasing number of multimedia features on mobile phones.

The newest technology advancement brings 25 percent higher manufacturing productivity over the previous 70nm design technology. It follows the introduction of 80nm production process technology for DDR2 DRAM in March 2005.