Zune 2.0 and iPod Nano 3G anyone?
Samsung has announced that it is the first company to begin mass production of 16Gb NAND flash memory using the 51 nanometre manufacturing process. The memory is based on a multi-level cell structure and is 60% more efficient than its 60nm counterpart, which also means it is up to as much as 80% faster. The new MLC design offers read speeds of 30MB/sec and write speeds of 8MB/sec as opposed to 17MB/sec and 4.4MB/sec for the previous generation. Samsung will target digital memory cards, MP3 players and cell phones with its new high capacity 51nm 16Gb NAND chips. Samsung will also offer a new suite of flash software to allow cell phones and MP3 players to take advantage of 4KB pages instead of the 2KB pages now used with 60nm NAND flash memory. The memory chips will also support 4-bit error-correcting code. Samsung is currently shipping the 16Gb memory chips and expects availability in the mainstream market by year"s end.
"In rolling out the densest NAND flash in the world, we are throwing open the gates to a much wider playing field for flash-driven consumer electronics. To minimize production costs and improve performance, we have applied the finest process technology a "half generation" ahead of the industry, which is introducing 55nm and higher," said Jim Elliott, Samsung Semiconductor"s director for flash marketing.