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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Petz who wrote (29294)	3/2/1998 5:34:00 PM
From: Profits	Respond to of 1573211

John, Here are the pros and cons on MLC: Pros - 2 bits/cell - Reduces array size - Claims potential for 30% savings in cost at same geometry Cons - Limits ability to scale geometries - Increased logic & support circuitry - Not compatible with 3V operation - Data Integrity concerns - > 3X power consumption - 3X slower write times - Only 10K endurance In a 2 bit cell at 0.35um, there are only 5-7,000 electrons between states. The ability to shrink this technology is very questionable and the likelihood of inadvertent state changes is high (there are 4 states 11, 10, 01, 00). Preventing charge loss and charge gain with only 5-7,000 electrons of separation is not reliable. AMD's has shrunk the conventional NOR Flash cell from 0.5um to 0.35um and will migrate to 0.25um to 0.18um, whereas shrinking MLC below 0.35um is unlikely. So where's the cost savings? Die size will remain high, whereas write cycle endurance remains low (10K write cycles max on MLC vs 1M write cycles min on AMD Low Voltage Flash). Profits