News

posted on 07 August 2008 11:40

Flash and DRAM manufacturers Hynix and Numonyx will jointly develop NAND flash and mobile phone DRAM product over a 5-year term.

The two suppliers have signed an agreement to expand their existing program with stated aims being:-

- Expand their program for NAND flash and broaden NAND product lines,
- Collaborate on mobile DRAM technology for mobile phones.

They say that 'synergies between Hynix and Numonyx, combined with Numonyx' 40 year legacy (from inherited STMicroelectronics technology) of solving difficult non-volatile memory challenges, and experience in developing firmware, microcontroller and other system solutions, will be key factors in helping to solve the limitations of the technology moving NAND from raw silicon to systems.'

Jong-Kap Kim, Chairman and CEO of Hynix, said: "To become successful in the rapidly evolving semiconductor industry, addressing technology issues jointly rather than independently reduces the risk by leveraging the best of both companies."

"Future joint technology development will be the key success factor in our alliance and we expect to make significant progress in developing memory solutions by focusing on the introduction of new products through systematic co-development in product, software and controller areas."

"Together, Hynix and Numonyx will develop a complete range of products on leading edge technologies that will enable both companies to win in the NAND segment. We'll now have one of the broadest NAND design communities in the world and we look forward to continued success as we now work to develop new NAND memory solutions today and in the future."

The Hynix view was expressed by Brian Harrison (left), its president and CEO: "Success and growth in the NAND segment over the next five years will require a unique set of capabilities that we believe we can achieve with Hynix. By combining our expert resources, engineering activities and Hynix' absolute focus on driving cost, we believe we'll have leading-edge technology, cost-effective and scalable manufacturing, industry leading memory system 'know-how' and a history of bringing system-level NAND solutions to market very quickly. The complementary expertise from Hynix will certainly help strengthen our NAND position in the wireless segment in particular."

Numonyx, formed less than a year ago from Intel and STMicroelectronics, makes NOR and NAND flash. NOR flash has a strong foothold in the mobile phone market.

The company is currently in cost-cutting mode as it struggles to cope with NAND over-supply and currency disadvantages. It is also transitioning to a 45nm process and trying to get its costs down faster than the NAND price fall curve.

Hynix is the number two DRAM supplier after Samsung and makes NAND flash. It has licensed STT-MRAM technology from Grandis to develop a new form of memory combining flash non-volatility and DRAM speed. It has a joint initiative with Samsung to develop this technology. Hynix has also developed a 3-bit multi-layer cell (MLC) NAND flash technology. The more bits in a NAND cell the higher the resulting NAND chip capacity.

Hynix is shutting down old plants as it moves from 200mm wafer technology to a more productive 300mm one.

Numonyx has its own flash+DRAM technology called Phase Change Memory (PCM) which it inherited from Intel.

A possible component of the agreement is a choice of a joint flash+DRAM technology with either PCM or STT-MRAM being discarded. With the current over-supply in NAND flash and no signs whatsoever of any NAND supplier exiting the business then cost-cutting and manufacturing efficiency are going to be the key foundations necessary for profit. Wasting money with competing R&D efforts for a flash+DRAM technology is an obvious place to cut costs.

The key immediate technology development is to make MLC flash with both good write endurance and good write speed. Doing that and having affordable chips will accelerate solid state drive (SSD) entry into the mass storage market currently dominated almost totally by hard drives.

Having higher-capacity mobile phone flash chips looks to be a useful direction as the market for communicating and intelligent hand-held devices looks to be set for sustained growth.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}








Manufacturing NAND memory is getting more complex as the technology scales, or moves to smaller and smaller manufacturing lithography nodes. Charge-Trap Device NAND is anticipated to replace the current mainstream Floating Gate NAND technology and Numonyx' experience in NOR Flash-based technology should contribute greatly to this evolution. Moreover, memory suppliers in the next five years will need to have a deeper understanding of the device physics and overall memory system level solutions to overcome the challenges.

Effective utilization of Numonyx' software expertise will help in this effort and make a positive impact in market penetration and increasing market share for integrated NAND solutions such as microSD, eMMC, and SSD. The synergies between Hynix and Numonyx, combined with Numonyx' 40 year legacy of solving difficult non-volatile memory challenges, and experience developing firmware, microcontroller and other system solutions will be key factors in helping to solve the limitations of the technology moving NAND from raw silicon to systems.

Mpbile DRAM

In addition to the collaboration on NAND, the companies also currently have a joint manufacturing initiative for the production of 300 mm low power mobile DRAM in their Chinese Wuxi joint venture. Mobile DRAM, commonly stacked with non-volatile memory in multi-chip packages is used by both companies in solutions for mobile devices. This collaboration on mobile DRAM will allow both companies to ship more cost effective, low power multi-chip memory subsystems to customers requiring small form factors. With the introduction of world's fastest 1 Gbit LPDDR2 product in April, Hynix is now the industry leader in mobile DRAM products in terms of product diversity, technology leadership, performance, and compatibility with SDR/DDR interfaces allowing for single chip solutions.

About Hynix
Hynix Semiconductor Inc. (HSI) of Icheon, Korea, is the world's top tier memory semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory chips (DRAMs) and Flash memory chips to a wide range of established international customers. The Company's shares are traded on the Korea Stock Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are listed on the Luxemburg Stock Exchange. Further information about Hynix is available at <http://www.hynix.com/>www.hynix.com.

About Numonyx
Numonyx designs and manufactures a full complement of integrated NV-RAM, NOR, NAND and phase change non-volatile memory technologies and products to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of customers in the wireless, data and embedded markets. Numonyx combines the technology and manufacturing expertise of the flash memory divisions of Intel Corporation and STMicroelectronics, and is dedicated to providing high density, low power memory technologies and packaging solutions to a global base of customers. Additional information about Numonyx is available at <http://www.numonyx.com/>www.numonyx.com.Ê

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