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STMicroelectronics To Enter Fast-Growing NAND Flash Market

STMicroelectronics, one of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers, has announced that it is entering the fast-growing market for NAND Flash memories. ST, the world's fourth largest supplier of NOR Flash memories, has teamed up with Hynix Semiconductor, Seoul, Korea, in an agreement to jointly develop NAND Flash products that will be marketed by both companies. ST and Hynix will introduce a full NAND product portfolio, beginning with a 512Mbit device to be introduced in the second half of 2003.

NOR and NAND devices employ different memory-array architectures, resulting in very different application benefits. The NAND memory cell is about 40% smaller than a NOR cell, which translates into a lower cost/bit, and NAND devices are specifically optimised for sequential access, i.e. where large amounts of data are normally read out from sequential addresses, similar to playing back a VCR tape. On the other hand, thanks to its much faster Random access time the NOR architecture is ideal for direct execution of program code.

Historically, NOR devices have dominated the Flash market and currently account for about three-quarters of the $8B 2002 world market. However, the NAND market today is growing at a faster rate, fuelled particularly by the increasing demand for mobile multimedia features such as streaming video clips -- the kind of data for which NAND memories are better suited.

"So far, ST has focused on NOR Flash, the largest segment of the market, where we have become one the world leaders both in technology and market share. It is now the right time for us to expand our Flash portfolio with NAND devices to address the fast growing demand for low-cost, high-density data storage," said Mario Licciardello, STMicroelectronics Flash Memories Division General Manager. "Cost-effective NAND Flash memories, supporting the demand for storing images, music files, and other multimedia data on mobile phones, MP3 Players, PDAs, and similar nomadic equipment will be a key factor in the resurgence of the consumer market."

The cooperation agreement between ST and Hynix covers all aspects of the joint portfolio expansion, including technology development, product design, and volume manufacturing. The development of the first NAND Flash devices will build on ST's proven skills in Flash memory design and Hynix's expertise in SDRAM process technology and volume manufacturing. The first products will be manufactured in Seoul but the agreement includes provisions for mutual sourcing.

ST and Hynix are targeting a large and growing range of applications that require a wide spectrum of density: medium to high for embedded systems as well as high to very high for mass storage. These include multimedia-enabled mobile phones, still and video digital cameras, and high-end DVD players, HDTV, and Set-Top Boxes.