Intel and Micron announced on Thursday last week that it was sampling NAND Flash memories using 20 nanometer (nm) geometry at their jointly-owned foundry in Lehi, Utah.
Intel-Micron Flash Technologies (IMTF) is the joint venture that operates the fab. Initial production is currently being sampled to large customers with volume production expected in the second half of the year. It was a little over one year ago that IMTF announced the first 25nm flash production. The chips come in 8GB modules that are much smaller in overall size than the 25nm chips. Many packaging options will be available for incorporation of the new components into target platforms ranging from smartphones to solid state drives (SSD). While planning to build single-level cell (SLC) modules at both 25nm and 20nm, the current production is two bit per cell multi-level cell (MLC).
Also announced was an upcoming two chip stacked module yielding 16GB that can be combined to create 128GB in an area smaller than a postage stamp. The new lithography size not only allows a 30% to 40% decrease in area required on a circuit board, it also allows the fab to produce nearly 50% more production, in terms of gigabytes, an important fact considering the amount of demand for flash memories driven by smart phones, pad computers and SSDs.
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