Samsung, Toshiba and Macronix go NAND crazy

MEMORY MAKERS Toshiba, Macronix and Samsung have pulled the covers off a type of NAND flash memory module, some NAND research and an SSD drive using toggle-mode DDR NAND.

Toshiba launched a 128GB embedded NAND flash memory module, which it said was the highest capacity yet achieved in the industry.

It is designed for use in the with devices like smartphones, tablet PCs and digital video cameras, with first samples expected in September and mass production to start in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, chip firm Macronix announced research in technology that stacks memory cells in three dimensions, potentially making terabit NAND possible.

Using 3D stacking, NAND flash might be able to achieve higher data storage capacity and lower fabrication cost.

"Traditional NAND Flash will be facing a technology barrier when it scales to below 2Xnm mode," said CY Lu, president of Macronix.

"The three-dimensional memory cell array structure has been proposed to be the most promising candidate for NAND Flash to shrink to below 1Xnm."

And finally, Samsung introduced an SSD drive that makes use of a 30nm 32GB chip it started producing last year.

Using a toggle-mode DDR NAND structure together with the SATA 3.0Gbps interface, the drive can generate a maximum sequential read speed of 250MBps and 220MBps sequential write speed, three times the performance of a typical hard drive. µ