– HYUNDAI’S FLASH MEMORY TECHNOLOGY IS BASED ON, AND FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH, ITS DRAM TECHNOLOGY
– USED IN APPLICATIONS SUCH AS PERSONAL COMPUTERS, WORKSTATIONS, SERVERS, PC PERIPHERALS
Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd. (HEI) today previewed the first product family developed collaboratively by the Flash Memory Division in San Jose, California, and its Memory Research and Development Division in Ichon, Korea.
These products operate with a single 5-volt power supply and are implemented in 0.35¥ì CMOS technology, with densities of 2, 4 and 8 Mbits and access times as fast as 45ns. They are fully compliant with, and offer the ease-of-use features of, the JEDEC standard for single power-supply Flash memories. The products are also compatible with similar products available from other Flash memory manufacturers.
The first member of Hyundai’s 0.35¥ì Flash memory family is the HY29F080, an 8 Megabit device organized as 1,048,576 (1M) bytes of 8 bits each. The HY29F080 is fully compatible with industry-standard uniform sector architecture Flash memories and operates with a single 5-volt power supply for read, program, and erase operations.
The device will be offered in industry-standard 40-pin TSOP and reverse TSOP and 44-pin PSOP packages and, initially, with access times as low as 70ns. Samples of this device will be available in November, with volume production starting in January 1999. A 55ns access time version is planned for later availability. Additional products in this family will be introduced in the next several months. Higher density 3-volt and 2-volt designs utilizing smaller geometries and featuring state-of-the-art capabilities such as concurrent read/write are currently in progress, and will broaden Hyundai’s product portfolio by the end of the millennium. Hyundai’s Flash memory technology is based on, and fully compatible with, its DRAM technology, which enables it to use its vast DRAM wafer fabrication and assembly operations to manufacture its Flash products. This permits quick shifts in product mix to smooth out the supply and demand imbalances historically seen in the Flash market, and allows Flash manufacturing to take full advantage of the experience and expertise gained in the high-volume manufacturing of DRAMs.
This furthers Hyundai’s goal of making Flash memory a commodity product, bringing Flash products to customers at the right time and at the right price. The availability of Flash memory products from Hyundai strengthens its market leadership position in memories and provides its customers with a single world-class source for their DRAM, SRAM and Flash memory requirements.
Hyundai currently ranks in the top three suppliers of DRAM and SRAM products, delivering these products in volume while meeting the stringent quality requirements of many of the world’s leading manufacturers of products such as personal computers, networking equipment and telecommunications devices.
About Flash Memory According to a recent report from Dataquest Incorporated of San Jose, California, the 1997 Flash memory market was the third-largest memory market and the largest non-volatile memory segment with shipments of about $2.7B. Dataquest projects the market to grow to in excess of $10B in 2002.
Flash memory technology provides a cost-effective combination of non-volatility, the ability to retain data even in the absence of power, and in-system programming capability. This combination of features has made Flash memory an enabling technology in many applications and one of the fastest growing semiconductor product categories in the 1990’s. Flash memory products are used in applications such as personal computers, workstations, servers, PC peripherals including modems and printers, internetworking equipment, telecommunications switches, cable modems, TV set-top boxes, Internet appliances, industrial control equipment, scientific and medical instruments and memory cards.
