Samsung fusion chip delivers flexibility for phone makers

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 28 March 2007 09:13

Your IT - Mobility

A new flash memory chip dubbed Flex-OneNand by Samsung combines two different technologies for the first time.

Intended for mobile phones and other handheld gadgets, the new design allows designers to take advantage of the characteristics of both types of flash memory with a single chip, allowing smaller and cheaper devices.

"This kind of memory has never been seen before,' Samsung president Hwang Chang-gyu told UPI.

SLC (single level cell) flash - as used in Samsung's new 64G 1.8in drive - provides fast read/write speeds, and is therefore good for multimedia functions.

MLC (multi level cell) flash provides greater capacity in less space as it stores two bits of data in each memory cell.

Samsung's new design allows the ratio of the two technologies to be adjusted to suit the requirements of different products.