Advertisment

Flash memory more potent with 4-GB

author-image
CIOL Bureau
New Update



TOKYO: Japan's Toshiba Corp said it would launch a flash memory chip with the world's largest memory capacity in a bid to fend off competition in an increasingly crowded market for easily re-writeable memory chips.

Advertisment

Samples of the four-gigabit NAND-type flash memory will become available later in April at 12,000 yen ($114) each, with volume production slated for the third quarter of 2004.



The NAND flash memory market, dominated by Toshiba and South Korea's Samsung Electronics, has enjoyed explosive growth from demand for digital cameras and photo phones, luring in such new entrants as South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor and Germany's Infineon Technologies AG.

NAND is a type of high-density flash memory chip that can write and erase information quickly.



It does not require power in order to retain information and is used in removable memory for easy printing and downloading.

Toshiba's new flash memory chips, manufactured with cutting-edge 90-nanometre process technology, will be produced by a joint venture between the Japanese chip and electronics conglomerate and SanDisk Corp of the United States.

A nanometre is one-billionth of a metre. Toshiba invented NAND flash memory technology in 1987.

© Reuters

tech-news