Date: 13/12/2008

1Gb+ serial NAND flash memory for embedded applications

Micron Technology has introduced a serial NAND flash memory chip of density starting at 1 gigabit (Gb). Serial NAND flash offers cost-per-bit advantage in comparison to NOR serial flash.

"Micron's serial NAND offers the lowest cost-per-bit serial interface flash on the market," said Kevin Kilbuck, director of NAND market development for Micron. "There are several embedded applications today that require 128 megabytes or more of storage, and we expect capacity to continue to grow, providing the need for a NAND-based storage alternative to NOR flash."

Micron has released this product in keeping view higher density embedded memory requirements at low cost for today's handheld and media handling convergence devices.
Micron's serial NAND utilizes the same package type as parallel NAND, effectively acting as a transitional gateway for manufacturers to move from a serial into a parallel NAND interface, if and when needed.

The notable advantageous features of this serial flash are,
Compatibility: Compatible with the industry standard Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) command set.
Faster: Running at 2.64 MB/s, Micron's serial NAND flash offers faster write performance than NOR flash, which falls below .5 MB/s.
Resolves complications with raw NAND through on-chip error correction code (ECC).
Provides read-only area and protected block lock to prevent tampering of the content stored in the device.

Availability: Now in samples with volume production in 1Q09