The Future of Embedded Flash
Lee Cleveland, Vice President, Engineering, Kilopass
Differentiation and time-to-market have always been the
cornerstones of success for chip companies. Embedded Flash
has played an important role in enabling competitive products
by providing flexibility and a higher level of integration to the system-on-chip (SOC). At 90nm and above, embedded Flash is prevalent
in many applications, ranging from code storage in power window
controllers to secure key storage in smartcards. But at 65nm and
below, there is currently no viable embedded Flash solution available.
A solution will be needed as products migrate to more advanced
process geometries in the next few years. In this article, possible non-volatile
memory (NVM) technologies to enable embedded Flash
at 65nm and below will be explored, including magnetoresistive
random access memory (MRAM), silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon
(SONOS), resistive random access memory (RRAM) and antifuse.
read more
How to Choose the Right DRAM for an Application
Pat Lasserre, Director, Strategic Marketing, Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. (ISSI)
While price and density play large roles in selecting dynamic
random access memory (DRAM), many other considerations
must be taken into account. For example, long-term
product support is a key consideration for many applications.
Manufacturers of products with long product lifecycles, such as
network infrastructure and automotive products, require lasting
product support. The DRAM market's transition to double data rate,
third generation (DDR3) will have implications for many of these
manufacturers.
In addition to long-term product support requirements,
networking and automotive manufacturers also have stringent quality
and wide temperature range requirements. With this in mind, some
chip vendors are taking measures to improve product reliability and
to widen supported temperature ranges.
For many handheld and mobile products, form factor and power
consumption are key considerations. This is driving demand for
known good die (KGD) DRAM that minimizes both active and
standby power to extend battery life.
read more
