December 2013 – The Memory Guy Blog

3D NAND: Who Will Make It and When?

This series has looked at 3D NAND technology in a good deal of technical depth. The last question to be answered centers around the players and the timing of the technology. A lot has been said about the technology and its necessity. Will everyone be making 3D NAND? When will this big transition occur?

This post will provide an update as of its publication (13 December 2013) to show each company’s current status, to the best of The Memory Guy’s understanding. Readers may want to refer back to the earlier posts in this series, as well as to a June 2013 Nikkei TechON article that gives a good review of the 3D NAND alternatives that have been presented at various technical conferences.

Let’s start with Samsung, the largest producer of NAND flash today. Just prior to Memcon 2013 last Continue reading “3D NAND: Who Will Make It and When?”

Rambus and Micron Sign License Agreement

The following is excerpted from an Objective Analysis Alert that can be downloaded from the company’s website.

Rambus and Micron announced on Tuesday that they have signed a patent cross license agreement. Micron receives rights to Rambus IC patents, including memories. Both Micron and Elpida products will be covered. The companies have thus settled all outstanding patent and antitrust claims in their 13-year court battle.

Micron will make royalty payments to Rambus of up to $10 million per quarter over the next seven years, totaling $280 million, after which Micron will receive a perpetual, paid-up license.

Rambus and Micron both have Continue reading “Rambus and Micron Sign License Agreement”

3D NAND’s Impact on the Equipment Market

A very unusual side effect of the move to 3D NAND will be the impact on the equipment market. 3D NAND takes the pressure off of lithographic steps and focuses more attention on deposition and etch. The reason for going to 3D is that it provides a path to higher density memories without requiring lithographic shrinks.

This sounds like bad news for stepper makers like ASML, Canon, and Nikon while it should be a boon to deposition and etch equipment makers like Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, and Lam Research.

In its summer 2013 V-NAND announcement, Samsung explained that it would be Continue reading “3D NAND’s Impact on the Equipment Market”

What is a “Multilayer Cell”?

From time to time I get questions from investors in the memory business asking: “What is a multilayer cell?”

The answer is: “There is no such thing: It’s a misstatement.”

The term “MLC” has, by a number of people, been mistranslated to “multi-layer cell.” The misunderstanding appears to have originated in the financial community. People in the flash memory business never use the term at all.

Yes, we talk about MLC, but to us the term means “multilevel cell”.

A multilevel cell is a cell that uses varying voltage levels to represent different states. With four voltage levels the resulting four states on a single cell can be turned into Continue reading “What is a “Multilayer Cell”?”