Intel Announces A New Class Of Flash Memory Products

Intel StrataFlash™ Memory Stores Multiple Bits of Information Per Cell

FOLSOM, Calif., Sept. 17, 1997 – Nine years of flash memory industry leadership and over 400 million units shipped have culminated for Intel Corporation in a technology that will have a revolutionary impact on the flash memory market segment. Intel today announced a new class of flash memory products -- called Intel StrataFlash™ memory. The Intel StrataFlash memory family of products stores multiple bits of information in each cell and can be used in classic as well as emerging applications.

"Two bits in the space of one starts a new direction in memory technology," said Gordon Moore, Intel's chairman emeritus. "This will lead the way to lower cost and open up new applications."

Enables the Rapid Growth of New Applications
Nine years ago, Intel flash memory debuted in medical systems and industrial control systems. Intel, however, envisioned a future for flash technology beyond these initial systems by demonstrating flash memory applications in digital audio recorders and digital cameras. In the years following, flash memory applications grew to enable computers to wake up smart by using flash memory in the bios, pocket-size cellular phones, and faster, more reliable networks.

Today, Intel's StrataFlash memory will support higher resolution recordings and longer recording times for digital audio recorders, increasing record capacity from 60 minutes to four hours in the same form factor. Intel StrataFlash memory allows Internet infrastructure to get faster as new high-speed protocols, which require higher density memory capacity in the same space, are developed. It will also enable digital smart phones and PC companions to become smaller and smarter.

Historically in the memory industry, lithography scaling to smaller and smaller dimensions has driven cost and functionality improvements. Hence, each consecutive generation of flash components has sought to pack greater densities on smaller chips at lower cost. Over the past nine years, Intel has successfully decreased line widths from 1.5 microns in 1988 through successive generations down to 0.4 microns in 1997, while increasing the density from 256 Kbits in 1988 to 32 Megabits in 1997. While this progress has kept Intel at the forefront of flash memory technology, Intel StrataFlash technology products change the rules for the industry, immediately doubling the functionality at today's lithography levels — resulting in the first 64 Mbit flash device for both classic and emerging applications.

Complete Design Solution
Both the 64- and 32-Mbit Intel StrataFlash components support Common Flash Memory Interface (CFI), an industry specification that enables compatibility across the field of CFI supported product. CFI also enables forward and backward compatibility to other flash products, such as Intel's 16- and 32-Megabit word-wide FlashFile™ components. Because software/hardware-combined solutions are the most cost effective means of enabling compatibility between products, Intel offers many such solutions to customers for code as well as data applications.

Intel provides royalty free and commercial software solutions for its customers. For those customers focusing on code storage, Intel offers Flash Memory Manager (FMM) to support simplified management of code upgrades in embedded systems. Intel is now working with industry leader Wind River Systems to provide robust code management solutions using CFI and Intel StrataFlash memory. Intel is also working to provide solutions for data storage. M-Systems is one of several software manufacturers working with Intel to develop hardware plus software solutions for data storage.

"M-Systems, the pioneer in flash data storage solutions, is pleased to be among the first in the industry to announce support for Intel's StrataFlash memory components. Our TrueFFS, FTL (Flash Translation Layer) software enables Intel StrataFlash components to seamlessly emulate a hard disk," said Dana Gross, executive vice president of M-Systems, Ltd. "We believe that this new 2-bit/cell memory technology will dramatically drive down the costs of flash memory, as well as reduce the footprint of high-density non-volatile solutions."

Pricing and Availability

At 47 cents per Mbit, Intel StrataFlash components are the lowest cost/bit NOR flash devices on the market. These components operate at 5V Vcc with 6 µS/Byte effective write speed. Intel StrataFlash memory devices are available in the standard 56-lead SSOP, TSOP, and µBGA* package. For more information about Intel StrataFlash memory, visit our Web site at developer.intel.com/design/news/pearls.htm.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.