Ausdauer,
That's not a bad question at all. In Motorola was flaunting their embedded controllers (32-bit microprocessor, serial port, 48K flash memory, 1K SRAM, plus other stuff) at IEDM way back in '95 (which I think I wrote about in a previous message here--I just happen to have the info near my desk). It's definitely feasible, but not as cost effective as you might think. The main issue is the processing, as the flash process and logic process are optimized for different things. When you integrate flash into your process, you tend to make non-optimal flash and, perhaps more importantly, you typically don't have flash experts on your team to help out (because they are all still working for flash groups). I'm sure Motorola, National, and maybe even Intel do it to some extent already, but not on their better known microprocessors.
With respect to SanDisk, they could probably integrate more functionality into the chip, but when you come right down to it, they may not want to integrate (more) controller circuitry into the CF, as then they'd have to market two different breeds of CF cards. Or, if they allowed the 'new' smarts ones to operate as 'dumb' ones in devices that already had controllers, then why not use that logic space for more memory and easier (silicon) processing? Hard to say. There are actually arguments AGAINST system-on-a-chip. :)
Let me mention that I am in no way an expert on flash technology. Please take everything with lots of salt.
Steve |
