Silicon Storage Technology Inc. (SST) and Changzhou China-based foundry Nanotech Corp. today announced they have entered into a multi-faceted investment, technology licensing and foundry relationship.

Under terms of the agreement, Nanotech is to license SST’s 0.25-micron, self-aligned SuperFlash technology to provide Nanotech’s foundry customers developing programmable logic and embedded flash memory products with access to SST’s flash memory technology.

Nanotech’s fabrication facility in the Changzhou National Hi-Tech District of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in turn is to serve as a foundry for SST, manufacturing its SuperFlash-based products on 0.25-micron process technology.

SST said this agreement increases its access to low cost manufacturing capacity, which it hopes will allow it to continue its leadership in the low-density flash market.

“We have received strong interest for our SuperFlash technology from fabless semiconductor suppliers and system designers throughout China, and this new relationship with Nanotech will help broaden the availability of our embedded flash memory to meet growing demand,” Bing Yeh, president and CEO of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SST, said in a statement.

As part of the agreement, SST, through its subsidiary SST International, has invested in Nanotech, allowing Nanotech to raise funding for a new fabrication facility in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China.

Established in March 2001, SST’s subsidiary, SST China, provides embedded flash memory design and manufacturing to Chinese design houses, as well as develops and sells flash memory, flash/RAM ComboMemory and embedded controller products in China.

SST’s SuperFlash technology is a NOR type, split-gate cell architecture which uses a thick-oxide process with fewer manufacturing steps to allow a low-cost, nonvolatile memory application with improved data retention and high reliability, the company claims. The split-gate NOR SuperFlash architecture facilitates a simple and flexible design suitable for high performance, high reliability, small or medium sector size, in- or off-system programming and a variety of densities, in a CMOS-compatible technology, according to SST.

By: DocMemory
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