Micron - The Memory Guy Blog

Inside SanDisk’s & Toshiba’s New 128Gb NAND Chip

One memory chip was so important that it was presented three times at this week’s International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) and that was the Toshiba/SanDisk 128Gb NAND flash. This chip was shown by Eli Harari in Monday’s keynote, then was featured twice in the Wednesday afternoon Nonvolatile Memories session – once by Toshiba and once by SanDisk.

The NAND chip, measuring 170.6mm², is said by both companies to be the densest NAND available. Compared to the Intel/Micron 64Gb 20nm NAND at 118mm², the device gives twice the bits in a 45% larger die area, so the companies’ claim rings true, since the only other NAND makers: Samsung and Hynix, have processes that fall far behind at 27nm and 26nm respectively.

Continue reading “Inside SanDisk’s & Toshiba’s New 128Gb NAND Chip”

Micron Suffers Another Loss

Soon after the death of Micron president Steve Appleton, former chairman & COO Jim Garrett passed away. Garrett died at age 64 from cancer.

Garrett joined Micron in 1985 as vice president of sales & marketing and became vice chairman in 1990. He served as chairman and chief operating officer from 1992-1994 until his resignation over allegations that another boardmember released internal company information.

Garrett had a good reputation as a positive manager who helped guide Micron through a very difficult period for the US DRAM industry.

New NAND Player: Macronix

Macronix, a company known for its leadership in mask ROMs and low-density NOR flash has just entered the NAND flash market. This adds a new player to a very small pool of competitors: Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, Hynix, Intel, and Micron.

The company’s first NAND products are SLC chips of two densities: 512Mb and 1Gb. Compare this to the offerings of the market’s other participants which range up to 256Gb. Spot price tracker InSpectrum doesn’t even track pricing of densities below 4Gb!

There still seems to be a good market for these low-density parts: According to WSTS Continue reading “New NAND Player: Macronix”

DRAM Consolidation in 2012?

2012 is likely to be a year in which the DRAM market consolidates a little bit more.

Consider this:

At its peak in the late 1980s the DRAM market sported 23 suppliers.
Today there are 6 suppliers of any note: Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Elpida, Nanya, and Powerchip
The already-depressed market is only going to worsen in 2012. Capital spending in 2010 is seeing to that. Although many believe that prices cannot get any lower, that is exactly what they will do in 2012. Continue reading “DRAM Consolidation in 2012?”

Micron, Intel, Introduce 128Gb NAND Chip

Micron Technology and Intel announced today (6 December, 2011) that the two companies are sampling a 128 gigabit (that’s 16 gigabytes) NAND flash chip manufactured by the company’s IMFT joint venture.

This is a doubling of the capacity of the 64Gb chip the companies announced in April, but they assure us that the size of the die hasn’t doubled, and the accompanying photo supports this. Intel tells us that the die will fit into standard BGA and TSOP packages. Continue reading “Micron, Intel, Introduce 128Gb NAND Chip”

IBM to Build Micron Hybrid Memory Cube

In a December 1 press release IBM announced that the company will be manufacturing Micron Technology’s Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) which IBM claims to be “the first commercial CMOS manufacturing technology to employ through-silicon vias (TSVs).”

This device is one that Altera, Intel, Micron, Open Silicon, Samsung, and Xilinx have all presented recently as a plausible solution to the difficulty of increasing the speed of DRAM/processor communications. The Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC) website offers a deep dive into the details of the consortium and the technology.

Continue reading “IBM to Build Micron Hybrid Memory Cube”