AMD's flash memory offshoot spawns whole new family

By Alun Williams

Posted on 8 Apr 2004 at 13:09

Formed as a joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu back in July 2003, Spansion has announced a milestone of developing its own first complete family of Flash memory products.

The SpansionTM S29AL/GLxxxM device family - which is based on MirrorBit technology - is now in production, optimised for embedded markets. These include consumer electronics, such as DVD players and set top boxes, and more industrial devices for robotics and networking.

'In the nine months since Spansion's inception, we have moved swiftly to unite the management, engineering and manufacturing operations of AMD's and Fujitsu's memory businesses into a single, cohesive company,' said Sylvia Summers, general manager of Spansion's Embedded Business Unit. 'I am proud to say that the arrival of our S29AL/GLxxxM device family represents not only a significant integration milestone for the company, but also a positive step forward for our customers as it allows them to accelerate their migration from floating gate to MirrorBit technology.'

Essentially, MirrorBit involves storing two full and distinct charges within a single memory cell. As well as doubling storage capacity, AMD claims the architecture is inherently more reliable than competing MLC (multi-level cell) products.

The new product line covers densities ranging from 16 to 256Mbits. You can find more information about Spansion on the AMD website.

As part of the original merger deal AMD contributed its Flash memory group, Fab 25 in Texas, its R&D facilities and assembly plants in Thailand, Malaysia, and China. For its part, Fujitsu threw in its Flash memory business division and the Malaysian Fujitsu Microelectronics final assembly and test operations. AMD owns a 60 per cent share of the new company and Fujitsu 40 per cent, with the accounts appearing on AMD's books.