The 16Gb is the highest density single-chip NAND flash memory yet achieved. Advancing from limited production of engineering samples at the end of 2006, Toshiba is now increasing shipments of commercial samples of new 8Gb (1 gigabyte) single-chip, multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memories, the current mainstream density, with availability from today, and will transition to mass production by the end of this month. Going forward, Toshiba will start manufacture of 16 GB (2 gigabyte) NAND flash memories, the highest density single-chip NAND flash memory yet achieved, in April this year.
The adoption of multi-level cell (MLC) technology and improved programming efficiency allows the new chips to offer high density and write performance. Application of 56nm process technology doubles the memory density per chip achieved with 70nm technology, achieving the largest single-chip density in NAND flash memory. A write performance of 10-megabytes a second, twice that of Toshiba’s present MLC products, reflects the efficiency obtained with advanced process technology and doubling page size, the amount of data that can be written at one time, from 2,112 byte to 4,314 bytes.
By combining advanced process and MLC technologies, and through continued advances in production efficiency, Toshiba will enhance cost competitiveness and meet the needs of the NAND flash memory market.