Non-volatile flash memory
Flash memory is becoming a key component in electronic systems. As the technology become faster and higher density, it starts to be used not just for storing parameters but for executing code. But the higher density parts need more aggressive, more expensive processing technology to drive the price down, and that is driving consolidation in the industry.
NAND flash memory technology, made by companies such as Samsung and the partnership of Toshiba and SanDisk, is mainly used in MP3 players and for storage. But it is the faster NOR flash market that is now seeing the shakeup.
Intel and key European chip maker STMicroelectronics have combined their flash operations to create a potentially market leading company, and capacity is the key to producing the right products at the right cost.
The deal also brings in a venture capital partner, Francisco Partners, to create a joint venture, called Numonyx, headquartered in Switzerland and headed up by an ST executive.
Last year the two operations had a combined revenue of $3.6bn, and 34percent of the market compared to 32percent this year for the other major player, Spansion.
Numonyx will focus on supplying non-volatile memory solutions for a variety of consumer and industrial devices including cellular phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, computers and other high-tech equipment.
“We want the industry to see that we are already hard at work to create a significant, agile and energetic new company and what better way to convey that than to give it a name,” said Brian Harrison, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Flash Memory Group and CEO-designate for Numonyx.
“Announcing our name allows us to begin developing an independent identity that customers and employees will recognise as a leader in innovative and cost-effective system-level memory solutions,” said Mario Licciardello, corporate vice president and general manager of STMicroelectronics’ Flash Memories Group and COO-designate for Numonyx. “While we are progressing in achieving regulatory approvals, planting the Numonyx flag establishes an important milestone for the company.”
At the same time Spansion, the flash joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu, is also moving to a new architecture and a new leading edge manufacturing plant in Japan.
The new architecture is Mirrorbit, which uses charge storage like a DRAM memory (see box) rather than the traditional floating gate technology that is potentially running out of steam.
It has also acquired Saifun Semiconductors, which it had licensed non volatile technology from. This allows Spansion to enter the technology licensing business with its own technology and Saifun’s, significantly expanding Spansion’s market opportunity by offering NROM and Mirrorbit to other semiconductor makers. This is particularly aimed at makers of NAND and DRAM memory and system on a chip makers to incorporate the flash technology on their chips.
The first of these deals is with US company Virident to integrate Spansion memory into its chips for data centres. The new memory will incorporate specific optimisations for server applications to enable fast read performance and high capacity, yet consume much less energy than power-hungry DRAM, as the MirrorBit Eclipse flash memory consumes 10percent of the power of DRAM per-Gigabyte.
“Our partnership with Virident is an example of how we are optimising our technology to address a totally new and exciting opportunity,” said Bertrand Cambou, president and CEO of Spansion. “With the Spansion and Virident next-generation memory solution, companies managing large consumer-facing web sites will be able to build world-class data centres that need a fraction of the power yet achieve high-performance scalability.”
“By understanding the needs and workloads of internet applications, we have built a new architecture which allows very large memories to drive server consolidation and enhance virtualisation in an energy-efficient manner,” said Raj Parekh, president and CEO of Virident. “Teaming with Spansion will accelerate our ability to deliver game-changing improvements in total cost of ownership for Internet servers.”
The key is that the economics of the industry are changing and there are also significant shifts in the technology.
“Going forward it is important to design a factory for the latest technology and that’s what we are doing with SP1,” said Cambou. “We are currently investing in two paths – first is to use a silicon foundry one node behind (TSMC) in order to dedicate our cash to the latest technology. SP1 has been designed with 45nm and 32nm in mind even though today we are running 65nm.”
“If you look at mobile phones the NOR flash technology is fast enough to work with the applications processor and baseband processor and we this our technology will get a significant cost reduction,” said Cambou. “There is a partial replacement possible as it will reduce the power consumption and can be used for instant reboot as it keeps data in the core. By the fourth quarter of 2007 all our Mirrorbit was in SP1 and that means the entire family will be produced on 300mm wafers.”
This gives a huge economic advantage. “Past 90nm the cost per gigabit is below that of DRAM and the first node where that will be significant is 65nm,” he said. “Floating gate technology is running out of steam in both NOR and NAND and there is a transition issue between floating gate and other technologies for other companies. I believe SP1 will drive use all the way to the 20nm node.”
The process technology for SP1 has been developed at the Submicron Development Centre (SDC) in San Jose, California, that was acquired from AMD and copied exactly to the fab. This is combined with the fab management skills from Fujitsu to optimise the layout and operation of the fab alongside the process.
That is going to be an issue with the Intel/ST venture Numonyx as Intel uses the same ‘copy exact’ approach across its fabs. How that will work combining with ST’s technology is a key part of the joint venture.
“Soon it will be impossible to scale floating gate technology,” said Jim Duran, executive vice president of operations and chief operating officer at Spansion. “We believe fundamentally its more scalable, simple and less expensive to build and we are investing all our resources into that. 45nm is already running full flow silicon at the SDC and we have been feasibility work on the nodes beyond that.”
“In this business you have to be the low cost producer, and the keys to being the lowest cost are leading edge technology, and you have to be a leader in test technology. All the 65nm products include built in self test (BIST) allowing us to test a wafer at a time rather than die by die, and this dramatically reduces the cost.
The Saifun deal also expands the memories that Spansion can make, and adds the possibility of a design team in Israel.
“Throughout our long-term partnership with Saifun we have been impressed with the depth of technology expertise, the quality of people and the ingenuity of the Saifun organisation and look forward to establishing a team in Israel,” said Cambou. “We look forward to collaborating with them to serve Saifun’s existing licensees, and enter new markets with a powerful technology licensing strategy and a broadened and diversified product portfolio.”
Spansion has been a licensee of Saifun’s NROM intellectual property since 2002 as the core of the MirrorBit technology. MirrorBit Technology now represents nearly one fourth of the entire NOR Flash memory segment, and generates revenues at a run rate approaching $2billion per year.
By combining the two companies, Spansion can further accelerate the development of its next generation product roadmap by directly leveraging over 150 MirrorBit technology and design experts and also eliminate its own licensing and royalty payments to Saifun.
“Joining forces with Spansion enables us to take our licensing business to the next level,” said Boaz Eitan, CEO of Saifun Semiconductor. “By combining Spansion MirrorBit expertise with our successful NROM IP licensing model, we will more rapidly enable our current and future customers to commercialise new generations of Flash memory technology. We will continue to support all of our existing licensees with the same commitment and dedication as before. We are certain that the addition of the Spansion IP and manufacturing know-how will only accelerate all programs.”
But SP1 marks Spansion’s move into true high volume manufacturing, supplying a key component for next generation equipment with a scalable, cost effective technology. The fab provides the other side of the equations to make the chips in 65nm, 45nm and even 32nm process technology well into the future. |
