Samsung preps FRAM as possible flash replacement
By Robert Ristelhueber
EE Times
(12/07/99, 10:39 a.m. EDT)
SUWON, South Korea ? Samsung Electronics plans to enter the ferroelectric RAM market next year with a 32-megabit device that could be used as a replacement for flash memory in cell phones, a company executive said.
Samsung has been working on FRAM at its Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) here, which does research for many of the company's groups. SAIT developed a 4-Mbit part that was transferred to Samsung's semiconductor group, which elected not to market the device in favor of a denser part, said Young Joon Gil, general manager of SAIT.
Commercial FRAMs have generally been marketed to date in very low densities, such as 16 kilobit, but a number of Japanese companies are known to be developing much higher densities, said Victor De Dios, of market research firm De Dios & Associates (Newark, Calf.). If Samsung introduces a 32-Mbit part in 2000, it could capture the FRAM density lead, he said.
Battery charge
Samsung also is preparing to enter the lithium polymer battery market, Gil said. A pilot production plant has been set up in Choson, Korea, and large-scale production could take place in 2000.
The batteries would be marketed by the Samsung Display Interface operation. Samsung would be the first Korean supplier to participate in the lithium polymer business, where Japanese companies have taken the lead in developing the thin, flexible batteries. |
