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The 25 years of flash memory?

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Deepa
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Flash memory company SanDisk marked the '25-year anniversary of flash memory', as on August 20. However, the release missed out to mention as to when exactly was the technology invented.

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According to a report on Forbes, "Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980."

And, it was not until four years later in 1984 that he presented the invention to the world at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco.

So, if it was in 1984, then it is yet to mark its 25th anniversary. That aside, though Toshiba were the inventors and even announced NAND flash at the 1987 International Electron Devices Meeting, it was Intel who came out with the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988.

While today, the new generation of memory card formats, including RS-MMC, miniSD and microSD, and Intelligent Stick, feature extremely small form factors, on the other hand, new technologies (such as FeRAM, MRAM, PMC, PCM, and others) are under investigation and development as possible more scalable replacements for flash.

What so ever, with or without competition flash still seems to have a long way to go. What do you think?

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