Intel to Form a Flash Memory Venture With a Swiss Company
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Intel will join with STMicroelectronics, a Swiss semiconductor maker, to form a new company to sell flash memory chips.
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(InfoWorld) - Flash memory and hard-disk drives could face a challenge from a new chip technology, dubbed phase-change memory, being developed by a group of companies led by IBM. The companies on Monday announced the results of their latest research into the technology, which they say will do a better job of storing songs, pictures, and other data on iPods and digital cameras than current flash memory, and could someday replace disk drives. Among the advances, the companies have built a prototype device that runs 500 times faster than today's flash memory while using half as much power to write data to a memory cell, they said. The circuits on the device are much smaller than those on today's flash chips, measuring just 3 by 20 nanometers, and show that, unlike flash, phase-change memory will be suitable for production on the advanced manufacturing techniques targeted for use in 2015, the companies said. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. The progress came partly from the development of a new material to build the memory chips, a germanium alloy to which the researchers added other elements to enhance its properties. The companies have applied for a patent for the material, they said. Besides IBM, the developers include Qimonda, the DRAM spin-off from Infineon Technologies, and Taiwan's Macronix International Co. They plan to discuss their findings at the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineer's 2006 International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco later this week. It's the kind of breakthrough that people look forward to in the IT industry, although end users will have to be patient before it finds its way into products. It could take several more years for the technology to be developed sufficiently for use in finished products. Still, phase-change memory appears promising. The chips would be a new type of non-volatile memory, which is memory that can hold its electrical charge -- and its data -- after devices are turned off. Flash is also non-volatile, but phase-change memory can hold its electrical charge better than flash and use it more efficiently, its backers say. Flash also faces a roadblock in the future. As engineers make chip circuits more tiny, the circuits leak more power and ultimately lose their ability to store data after being turned off. The size limit appears to be around 45nm, although it will still be years before the flash industry starts using such tiny production technologies. Phase-change memory can be scaled down to 22nm, or far smaller than flash memory, the researchers developing it say. It also appears able to be more durable than flash, whose memory cells start to break down after 100,000 rewrites. While its prospects appear bright, the technology faces several hurdles. New chip designs must be relatively easy to manufacture, and they need to be cost-effective enough to attract device makers. RambusÂ faced this issue when its chips failed to overtake DRAM as the main memory type for PCs several years ago, despite having the backing of Intel. The problem, some companies said, is that the chips was were too costly to produce -- although Rambus vehemently disagrees with this. IBM has posted photos of the phase-change devices here, and some animation clips here.
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A flash memory joint venture owned by STMicroelectronics  , Intel Corp  and Francisco Partners will get about half the debt financing originally intended and has delayed closing until March 28.
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Hit by turmoil in the debt capital markets, STMicroelectronics, Intel, and Francisco Partners agreed on Wednesday to extend the deadline to launch Numonyx, a flash-memory joint venture between the three companies, to March 28.In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Intel said the parties have re-negotiated the commitment letter which originally called for certain lenders to provide up to U1.55 billion to finance Numonyx.Under the revised financing terms, Geneva-based chip maker STMicroelectronics will provide $364 million to the joint venture with a 48.6 percent stake of Numonyx. Francisco Partners will invest $150 million in exchange for a 6.3 percent equity stake, according to STMicroelectronics.Intel will retain a 45.1 percent ownership in the joint venture but hadn&#39;t calculated its financial commitment, according to an Intel spokesman.Numonyx will also receive a $650 million loan and a $100 million revolving credit facility, according to Intel&#39;s filing with the SEC.The updated agreement provides Numonyx a similar level of net cash with lower indebtedness than originally anticipated, ST Microelectronics said in a release.The three companies originally announced the joint venture on May 22 and said the deal would close in the second half of 2007. Numonyx is aimed at supplying NOR and NAND memory for consumer and industrial products including cell phones, digital cameras, PCs and other equipment.After the deal closes, Numonyx will be the largest supplier of NOR flash memory, STMicroelectronics said in the release.
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Intel could be getting ready to give its WiMax ambitions a much-needed infusion of cash as part of a joint venture between Sprint and Clearwire.
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The company plans to present a paper this week outlining a new type of memory that could help boost processor performance.
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Produrra' memorie flash con Intel e Francisco Partners
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Intel has doubled the capacity of phase-change memory, a likely replacement for flash.
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Hitachi and Intel are teaming up to add storage to more mobile devices.
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Intel ignited a new round of competition with Sun Microsystems and International Business Machines today by announcing plans to bring its most advanced chip-making technology to its Itanium line of business chips for the first time.
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Intel, the world&#39;s biggest semiconductor maker, said Monday it built a test chip with a new process that creates faster circuits by packing 10 million transistors into an area the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen.
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Intel and graphics processing vendor nVidia said today that they have signed a wide-ranging technology sharing pact that will let nVidia use Intelâs front-side bus (FSB) technology.
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Company alters traditional chip configuration to pack more memory into an even smaller unit.
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Intel will speed servers by building in flash-memory drives beginning in 2008, Intel exec says: Less capacity, but faster communications.
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Scientists have developed an alloy they say can be used to create memory chips more than 500 times as fast as todayÂs flash chips.
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By Subashini Selvaratnam  INTEL Corp is working on a new 45-nanometre (nm) transistor technology which will boost the processing speeds in personal computers (PCs), laptops and servers.
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MUNICH, Germany  - Fujitsu-Siemens Computers will  start selling laptops with flash memory instead of hard drives  this summer, bringing faster, lighter and more energy-efficient  computers to the European mass market.