Intel Samples 1.8V Flash Memory
News from E-InSite
Two weeks after Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) huddled to defend turf against Intel Corp. in the upcoming mobile flash memory market share war, Intel again stomped into the field, boasting that its 1.8V wireless flash memory chip, released today, has the highest performance of any flash chip available.
Further, claims the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, the chip’s low voltage allows Internet phone energy savings of up to 60 percent, extending stand-by and talk time as well as battery life.
“This is the highest performing flash for Internet phones, and we expect this architecture to become the de facto standard for next-generation Internet phones and handheld devices,” said Curt Nichols, general manager, Intel Flash Products Group, in a statement.
Intel said that two-thirds of cell phones in the hands of consumers today have its flash memory inside. Today’s announcement signifies the company’s campaign to retain market share by introducing a flash memory device with the features OEMs want for upcoming cellular hand set designs.
Intel hopes to ship one billion units of the 1.8V flash part over the next five years. That’s an impressive figure, considering it took the company 10 years to reach its first one billion flash memory chips milestone earlier this year. But the projecting for cell phone growth supports the company’s claims.
Intel arch-rival AMD Inc, Sunnyvale, Calif., announced a similar 1.8V flash memory part in June, and it features many of the same qualities as the Intel part. However, Intel says its chief advantage will be its 0.18-micron technology, which will save about half the board space as flash memories fabbed on .25-micron technology. That becomes important where small form factors for cell phone design are crucial to sales, such as Japan, according to Nichols.
Intel recently introduced its Personal Internet Client Architecture, a framework designed to accelerate the development of Internet applications and wireless devices. It’s also Intel’s attempt to muscle into the mobile flash market, which is set to expand off the back of a mobile market that will top one billion unit shipments in 2004.
The chip is the latest product of that initiative. The 1.8V chip is Intel’s second flash product built on 0.18-micron process technology, allowing for high-volume manufacturing to meet flash market demands, the company said.
Intel says its chip offers flexible partition architecture and enhanced factory programming to boost its performance. Flexible partition architecture, claims Intel, allows the phone or device to read from one partition while writing to or erasing another partition. Enhanced factory programming is a programming algorithm built into the flash chip that speeds device programming, saving manufacturing time and costs as much as 80 percent, according to the company.
“Next-generation cellular and wireless devices will incorporate more data features like Internet browsing, voicemail recording and receiving text and fax messages,” Nichols said. “These types of applications are much more data-intensive and will require the higher data throughput rates that are achieved with this flash memory.”
AMD, of course, is equally interested in meeting those potentially lucrative demands and both it and TI are watching Intel’s entry into the market closely, said Brian Matas, an analyst at IC Insights research firm, Phoenix Ariz. Matas praised Intel’s entry, saying it added a competitive product to the market.
“A lot of people are looking to Intel to provide flash,” he said.
Intel already has the lions share of the flash market, according to analysts, so the announcement by TI and AMD two weeks ago that they would develop flash for mobile phones that piggybacks onto a TI chip was seen as a pre-emptive strike. Some in the industry believe the companies are trying to prevent Intel from completely cornering the market.
However, Nichols said Monday that Intel’s flash parts will be made to be compatible with other cellular hand set designs and not just its own initiative.
“If we want to ship to the world’s largest cell phone manufacturers, we have to support their designs,” Nichols said.
Intel will sample 32Mbit and 64Mbit densities this month, with production in the first quarter of 2001. The 128Mbit density will follow later in 2001. In 10,000-unit quantities, the 32Mbit device is priced at $16 each and the 64Mbit at $30 each. |
