Why did you say mDOC is dead, and what do you mean by OneNAND being superior to mDOC?
If two giants, Samsung and Toshiba, controlling in excess of 60% of world's nand ouput agree to push OneNAND, it may become a de facto standard for a lot of devices that need booting capabilities, even if it is not the ideal solution when it comes to mobile phones! Remember, both companies have significant expertise in NAND and DRAM as well as Logic and are extremely efficient manufacturers.
Personally, I favor MCPs for mobile phones for obvious reasons, but both SoCs and MCPs/SiPs have their Pros and Cons. The obvious reasons in favor of MCPs are short-design cycles, short product lives with constantly evolving designs, different density requirements for different models - general flexibility in memory mix, etc. Whereas SoCs are fine for long design cycles but high volumes needs with stable designs (calculators, DVD players, Microwaves, etc.), performance is critically important, etc. Both of these, have their drawbacks too and the costs can vary with the kind of volumes needed and duration and stability of design cycles. Yields and unit volumes are critical in SoCs to bring down the overall cost, whereas availability of all components at the same time are necessary to do the MCPs cost-effectively. There are many more issues that I will not go into but I am sure, you get the point.
Compare the specs of OneNAND and mDoC H3 for performance of both products. Whether OneNAND performance is an overkill for many applications is a separate issue. SoC in general will have better performance, cost on the other hand can be higher unless volumes are high. Samsung shipped over 100mm OneNAND units in 2006 and probably much higher in 2007. mDoC in comparison is nowhere near those unit shipments numbers but it will get a makeover in 1Q08 with new MCPs from Sandisk+Qimonda replacing mDoCs and should be interesting to see what they come-up with.
On a separate issue, Samsung's licensing agreement with m-Systems (now acquired by Sandisk) expires at the end of 2007. As per SEC documents filed by m-Systems, they had licensed certain IP to Samsung in exchange for L&R fees and guaranteed nand supplies at favorable rates. It is, however, not clear what was licensed and what, if at all, was/is being used by Samsung under that license and whether they will renew that license with Sandisk. We should find out soon enough though. |
