Samsung Introduces Industry's First 60-nm 8-Gb NAND Flash Memory
- Samsung shows industry's first 2-Gb DDR2 SDRAM

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the leader in advanced semiconductor technology, has developed the industry's first 60-nanometer (nm) 8-Gigabit (Gb) NAND Flash memory device for data storage medium such as low density mobile hard disks for mobile appliances.

"NAND flash technology development continues to double density growth on an average of every 12 months," said Dr. Hwang Chang-gyu, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics' Semiconductor Business.

Verifying the New Memory Growth Model he first presented at the ISSCC's 2001conference, Dr. Hwang said on Sept. 20, "The industry has seen densities grow  from 256 Megabit (Mb) in 1999, to 512Mb in 2000, 1Gb in 2001, 2Gb in 2002,  4Gb in 2003 and  now 8Gb in 2004" Samsung's advanced 60nm process technology is two thousandths the width of a piece of human hair, and achieves approximately 30 percent reduction in cell size over the 70nm 4Gb NAND Flash memory developed last year. The result is the world's smallest 0.0082㎛2 per bit cell size.

The key to development at such high densities and fine circuitry design is a 3-D cell transistor structure and high-dielectric gate insulating technology that minimizes the interference level between cells.  In addition, by utilizing the most widely used KrF lithography technology bit cost is reduced by 50 percent.

Samsung is further enhancing its technology base by introducing its new multi level cell (MLC) technology in the 60nm process technology. The new 8Gb MLC NAND flash memory broadens the company's flash memory portfolio, meeting increasing market demand for efficient and cost effective non volatile storage devices.  MLC technology also offers designers a competitive choice for low power, small form factor storage solutions that enable low density mobile internal hard disks (HDD) for compact mobile applications.

The 8Gb NAND flash memory will allow designs of up to 16Gigabytes (GB) of storage on a single memory card. That 16GBs of memory translates into storage of up to 16 hours of DVD quality video or 4,000 (five minutes per song) MP3 audio files.

According to market research firm iSuppli, the NAND flash market has doubled annually in volume from $900 million in 2001 to $4.2 billion in 2003. iSuppli expects NAND sales to reach $7.2 billion this year and $9.9 billion in 2005.  This contrasts the growth of NOR flash sales, which shows a three percent CAGR and sales expanding from $6.7 billion in 2001 to a forecasted $7.6 billion in 2005.

In line with these market trends, Samsung's NAND flash business has shown strong growth expanding from $400 million in 2001 to $2.1 billion in 2003.  The company is focused on accelerating production of advanced devices with 2Gb NAND flash production shipping over 10 million pieces per month to date in 2004.

Samsung expects to launch mass production of the 4Gb NAND flash by the first quarter of 2005. This year Samsung expects to double volume of NAND sales and account for 65 percent global market share.

- Samsung shows industry's first 2-Gb DDR2 SDRAM

Samsung also announced the industry's first 2-Gigabit (Gb) DDR2 SDRAM utilizing 80-nanometer (nm) process technology. The high density, DDR2 solution will enhance server and workstation performance and enable faster deployment of memory intensive applications like real time video conference, remote medical service, two-way communications, and 3-D graphics.

Samsung developed the DDR2 SDRAM using an advanced 80nm process technology, overcoming the industry expectations that 2Gb DRAM manufacture would require sub 65nm circuitry.

The new DRAM technology breakthroughs include a 3-D transistor technology, recess channel array transistor (RCAT), and a new concept architecture process. First introduced 2003, RCAT is a technology unique to Samsung that reduces transistor area space by implementing a 3-D structural design, increasing the integration level for higher density on a given area.

To address the high performance features of the DDR2 specification, Samsung adopted a double poly gate technology, 20-angstrom level ultra thin oxide film process, and a triple-layer metal circuitry. The high speed process technology coupled with the feasible 80nm technology also advances the time-to-market availability of the new DDR2 device.

Market research firm, Gartner Dataquest forecasts that DDR2 technology's market share will grow from 11 percent this year to 50 percent by year-end 2005, making DDR2 the mainstream DRAM product.

The company expects aggregate sales of DDR2 to reach 15million units in September and will continue to dedicate more of its DDR production to the high performance technology aiming for DDR2 to comprise 32% of its DDR business by years?end Samsung plans to launch mass production of the 80nm process, 2Gb DDR2 SDRAM in the second half of 2005.  The 2Gb DDR2 devices meet fine-pitch ball grid array (FBGA) package specifications for DDR2. Even without modifications, the devices can directly drive module density levels of Gigabyte (GB) scale; 2GB, 4GB and 8GB.

New Multimedia Memory Cards for High Speed Data Transmission in Mobile Digital Applications Samsung Electronics announced on Sept. 22 that it has developed new memory cards that carry both Samsung flash memory and an in-house designed card controller, meeting the standard announced earlier this year by the MultiMediaCard Association (MMCA), an open standard memory card organization. The new memory cards, introduced in two formats full size and reduced size under the respective brands MMCplusTM and MMCmobileTM, are backward compatible with the MMC card as the conventional MMC host will configure and adjust to the new interface.

MMCplusTM and MMCmobileTM are upgraded versions of the MMC specification. The new memory cards support wider bus widths (x1, x4, x8) and a clock frequency of 52megahertz (MHz) to enable faster data transition rates.  It has the industry's fastest read and write performance: 20MB per second for data read function and 15MB per second for data write speeds. The MMCmobileTM voltage support of 1.8V or 3.3V ensures minimum power consumption.

Samsung expects the advanced features -- small form factor, high data transition rates and low power -- to boost market acceptance of the new MMC specification as the most competitive card format for not only mobile handsets but also for almost any mobile digital device.

As multimedia data demand continues to escalate, the card controller's performance becomes a critical factor for determining transmission speed. To further speed performance, Samsung has built a 32-bit ARM7 processor into its high speed MMC controller. The data bus has been expanded to 8-bits.  The host interface speed has also been improved from the 2.5MegaBytes per second (MBps) for most MMC controllers to 52MBps.

Samsung's high speed MMC controller facilitates software upgrades and modifications with a 48KiloByte (KB) Flash memory in place of the EEPROM, enhancing card compatibility. In addition, Samsung has improved the cache and interleaving algorithm for data processing, boosting the read/write speed and enhancing user convenience. The new MMC controller also takes up less space, supporting the smaller form factors of the MMCs.

Market research firm Gartner Dataquest forecasts that MMC commands the highest growth rates among solid state storage media formats through 2003 to 2008. The CAGR for unit volumes is expected to be 24 percent and sales revenue to show 37 percent growth.   nw