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Spansion combines 2 Flash types in 1Spansion, the former AMD and Fujitsu joint venture, reckons it has found a way for mobile handset manufacturers to shave around 30 per cent off their build cost thanks to a new type of memory it's calling Mirrorbit Eclipse. Eclipse aims to solve manufacturers' classic dilemma over the type of memory they fit inside their devices. Unlike PC owners, a mobile phone user doesn't really expect the handset to take more than 60 seconds to boot up. That's according to research in Japan, Spansion's Patrick Le Bihan says. To get round this, handset vendors have been using NOR style memory which in Eclipse's case provides an XIP (execute-in-place) capability. So the handset will boot fast. The catch is that handset owners like to store loads stuff on their phones like pictures and MP3s and for that kind of application NAND style memory is best. What Spansion reckons it has done with Eclipse is to combine both NAND and NOR style memory into one chip. So handset vendors won't have to fit two different types of memory chip, they can just fit one. The result is cost savings of around 30 per cent plus the fact that a single chip takes up less space and will save on power consumption too. Spansion expects its first silicon in Q3 2007 and hopes to sample a 65nm Mirrorbit Eclipse chip built on 300mm wafers by Q4. These versions will feature Spansion's two-bit-per-cell technology. By the time it reaches 45nm, Spansion hopes to be able to move to four-bit-per-cell technology with Eclipse. Thanks to support for built-in self test (BIST), the company also reckons it can produce the chips faster and more efficiently. Le Bihan said that he expects most handset vendors to initially fit a 1GB version of his company's product inside their phones. However, he claimed that the product was just as relevant to mainstream handsets as it was to smartphones and feature phones. What isn't clear is whether consumers will accept a phone that doesn't have removable storage – which is what the move to combining NAND and NOR on a single chip implies.The full Inquirer story ... Spansion gets its NAND and NORs mixed up |
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