Wednesday, June 1, 2005
South Korean electronics giant Samsung has begun mass production of a new 4 gigabit flash memory. This is twice the size of almost all the biggest solid state memory devices currently available.
The firm is using a new 70-nanometer process which enables it to produce the smallest cell on the market, enabling a far higher density than competitors. The device can write data at 16-megabytes per second, twice as fast as a 90nm 2Gb device.
Possible applications of the new memory will most likely be as a component in MP3 players, top end mobile phones, USB memory sticks, digital cameras, and other portable devices.
The new form of EEPROM memory writes and reads data faster than previous versions — up to 16 megabytes per second. The storage of real-time high-definition video is feasible on the chips, according to Samsung. The company also believes their Flash-based disk drives could replace hard drives in laptops since they will work faster, quieter and cooler than drives currently in use.