News

posted on 18 June 2008 13:43

In an SEC filing SanDisk has revealed a collaboration with Toshiba to develop 3D memory.

This extends a current NAND flash joint venture in which Sandisk 'and Toshiba currently collaborate in the development and manufacture of NAND-flash memory products using equipment owned or leased by three joint ventures in each of which (SanDisk) owns a 49.9% interest and Toshiba owns a 50.1% interest.'

'3D memory' refers to the vertical stacking of non-volatile memory chips to provide up to 100 years of storage. It was developed by, amongst others, Matrix Semiconductor, founded in 1998, whose product, Matrix 3-D Memory (3DM), was a low cost, high-density line of permanent, one-time programmable, non-volatile memory targeted at publishers of digital content and for use in portable consumer electronic devices. It came to nought. SanDisk bought Matrix Semiconductor in 2006.

The agreement with SanDisk shows that the technology is still thought to be promising but development of commercial product is many years away. Whether they intend to continue with write-once 3D Memory (aka WORM flash) is not clear.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}