To meet the increasing demand for feature-rich cell phones equipped with cameras, color screens, Web browsing and video Intel Corp. said today it is volume shipping what it claims is the industry’s first 90nm multi-level cell (MLC) NOR flash memory device.

The new StrataFlash cellular memory (M18) is meant to deliver faster performance, higher density and lower power consumption than the previous 130nm version, Intel said.

“Flash memory is one of the driving technologies in enabling the next generation of cell phone applications,” said Darin Billerbeck, VP and general manager of Intel’s Flash products group, in a statement.

The M18 is built on Intel’s fifth generation MLC technology and 90nm process lithography.

Intel said the M18 operates at the same bus frequency as next-generation cellular chipsets – up to 133MHz – which speeds user application execution because the interaction between the chipset and memory operation is faster than in the 130nm version.

With write speeds of up to 0.5Mbits per second, the M18 supports 3-mega pixel cameras and MPEG4 video.

OEMs are set to benefit from lower production costs resulting from factory programming speeds of up to three times faster than prior 130-nm versions, Intel believes, since it says the M18 consumes one-third the energy to program and about half the energy to erase than prior generation products, and offers the new Deep Power Down operation mode for improved battery life.

The M18 also increases the NOR flash density reach, with single chip solutions of 256Mbit and 512Mbit and standard stacked package solutions up to 1Gbit. Intel’s standard stacks combine NOR and RAM in multiple bus architectures.

Finally, Intel said it is working with cellular chipset vendors such as ADI, Philips, Infineon and MediaTek in addition to such operating system vendors as Symbian and MontaVista to help ensure products are ready for the 90nm M18 product family. The M18 will be designed into phones from NEC and Sony Ericsson, Intel concluded.

By: DocMemory
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