Spansion maps out future for 8Gbit memory parts

By Steve Malone

Posted on 9 Nov 2004 at 10:53

Spansion, the flash memory joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu has laid out its plans to develop 8Gbit memory parts based on 65nm lithography.

Included in the three year road map set out by Spansion are plans to produce the first 90nm, 1Gb NOR device and what the company claims are 'new mass data storage products for mobile phones' at the beginning of next year. The company plans to move to 65nm 8Gbit parts by 2007,

In addition, the company announced plans to develop what it calls 'ORNAND' technology. Currently, the Flash memory market is roughly divided between competing NOR and NAND designs. Spansion now plans to develop a Flash memory architecture that seeks to combine NOR code execution and NAND data storage capabilities in a single product based on MirrorBit technology.

Spansion says that the first ORNAND products are due in 2005 with burst-write speeds up to four times faster than current NAND products.

In a separate announcement Spansion says it also plans for a new range of Flash memory devices that offer combined code and data storage from 16-megabits to 5-gigabits.