Making Memories

Recently, I traveled to Lehi, Utah with a select group of media and industry analysts for a tour of IM Flash Technologies, the fabrication facility where we make our NAND flash memory. Together with some colleagues from Intel, we enjoyed a rare opportunity to see the inner workings of this state-of-the-art fab.

This was the first time Micron has ever allowed media and analysts inside the fab – an experience that many reported was well worth it. Just ask Allyn Malventano from PC Perspectives: “Getting a first-hand look at the bleeding edge of chip fabrication is something I know I’ll be talking about for years to come.”

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Why Copper is Critical to the Best DRAM Technology

Yesterday we announced our 42nm DRAM technology with a 2Gb DDR3 device. If you just skimmed the headlines, you could have missed an important point—our DRAM is built with copper for critical metallization layers (not aluminum, like some others are). Now, that might be something you’re tempted to shrug off, “Isn’t DRAM just built to standardized specs? Does the metallization type really matter?” It absolutely does as we move below 50nm process technology and DRAM product specifications become more demanding and complex.

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Just How Small is 25nm?

Technology moves fast. It was only 14 months ago that we went into production with our world-leading 34nm process NAND, and we’ve already moved on to 25nm NAND. In this brief whiteboard video, I explain just how small 25nm is (3,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair) and why our ongoing quest to shrink process technology is vital to the future of storage.

World’s Most Advanced Semi Process

Today, Micron and Intel announced 25nm NAND, the smallest, most advanced semiconductor process technology in the world. This achievement allows us to double the capacity of our highest-density MLC device, enabling up to 64GB in a single package and paving the way for big developments in storage, computing, and consumer electronics.

The video below features highlights from a presentation given by Intel and Micron executives at our 25nm announcement. Learn what our aggressive scaling strategy means for the future of storage and the next generations of NAND.

Top 10 Product Innovations of 2009

Let’s commemorate the close of the year with … a list!

OK, to be honest, ending the year with a Top 10 List is not very, um, well, innovative. But it’s what’s on our list that’s innovative. And the year 2009 for Micron and Lexar Media can be summarized like this: Bigger. Faster. Better.

So, that’s our Top 10 list for 2009, innovatively reduced to three memorable points.

Still not ready to let go of tradition? Then, on with the Micron and Lexar Top 10 Innovations of 2009 countdown:

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Benchmarking the World’s Fastest Client SSD

Our new RealSSD C300 outperforms every client SSD currently available on the market. To prove it, we ran a few standard benchmarking tools (PCMark Vantage’s disk suite and the classic disk benchmark ATTO) on identical systems. The only difference: a 256GB Micron RealSSD C300 in one system and the leading competitor’s 160GB SSD in the other.

System Details
MoBo: Intel® X48 chipset based
Processor: Intel Core2Duo E8500
Memory: Micron® 2GB DDR3 1066 (PC3-8500)
Drive Interface: SATA 6Gb/s (via Marvel HBA)

Advanced MCPs for the Changing Mobile Market

An interview with Eric Spanneut, director of mobile memory marketing.

Chris Smith: Eric, thanks for talking with me today. I’ve noticed that Micron has been focusing more and more energy on the mobile market. Today, the company introduced a new line of MCPs; could you tell me a bit about these products?

Eric Spanneut: We are announcing the adoption of our latest process technologies—both NAND and DRAM—to our line of high-end MCPs. It means that we have leveraged our 34nm single-level cell (SLC) technology on the NAND side, as well as our 50nm technology on the low-power DRAM side.

Chris: Is this the first 50nm designed into your MCP products?

Eric: This is our first monolithic 2Gb LPDRAM, which is being adopted by our MCP product line.

Chris: What range of the mobile market will these MCPs serve?

Eric: These products will serve the high-end feature phone market, and the smart phone market that uses open operating system like Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian, as well as the nascent mobile internet device (MID) market.

Chris: I notice that this MCP uses LPDDR, but I know you manufacture LPDDR2; when will you transition this MCP to LPDDR2?

Eric: We see growing interest in LPDDR2, but first adoption by handset vendors won’t happen until second half of 2010. We expect LPDDR to be the front-runner in terms of volume for the next three to four years. That said, when the transition does begin, handset vendors will recognize significant advantages with LPDDR2, including reduced pin count, higher frequency and a better power budget.

Chris: So, if LPDDR2 has these benefits, why isn’t it being widely adopted at this time?

Eric: The mobile value chain is a very complex one with a complex ecosystem. It always takes a long time for a new technology to be massively adopted.

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Ready for Windows 7? Don’t Forget the Memory.

I had a chance to sit down with Micron’s Matthias Buchner, director of segment marketing for Micron’s DRAM product group, to talk about the launch of Windows 7, the memory impact and other trends in the industry.

Chris Smith: Thanks Matthias for talking with me. I was hoping you could give us some perspective on how the launch of Windows 7 today will impact DRAM demand?

Matthias Buchner:  Sure, happy to talk with you. It’s important that we first look at it from the OS perspective, and then I’ll touch on the DRAM impact. In general, consumers have been waiting for a reason to purchase an upgraded PC for years. Whereas Windows Vista was an evolutionary step, industry insiders believe that Windows 7 is the revolutionary catalyst that will bring would-be PC buyers off of the sidelines and into the PC market.  While I expect that Windows 7 memory content will increase to 4GB from 2GB, I also believe that the launch of Windows 7 will spur DRAM bit growth through increased PC unit sales. Unit growth should be driven by consumers in calendar 2010, followed by the enterprise applications in calendar 2011.

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Huge Reliability from Tiny NAND

Since introducing our 34nm NAND nearly a year ago, we’ve made big  strides in both performance and reliability. Now, nearly all of our NAND products are built on 34nm—leading the industry in density and efficiency.

In fact, our 34nm process is so solid, we’ve even moved our super-high cycling Enterprise NAND parts to it. We just announced 34nm SLC and MLC Enterprise NAND parts that can hit 300,000 and 30,000 cycles, respectively. These new parts deliver unmatched density, cost-efficiency, and reliability and will open up new potential for NAND storage in enterprise applications.  Watch my quick explanation below to understand why.

Tripling NAND Performance in Mobile Systems

We’ve been getting great response from customers who’ve seen our NAND performance demonstration, so we wanted to share it with a wider audience.

The test pits our single- and dual-plane SLC devices and NANDCode™ FTL software against Samsung’s OneNAND™ running on Microsoft’s FTL. The test system is a TI OMAP™ 3430 development platform running Windows Mobile® 6.5 OS. We changed out the onboard NAND with a simple PISMO card swap and then ran a 10MB system performance test.

The results are impressive and undeniable. The key is our custom NANDCode FTL software, which enables advanced performance features like dual-plane programming.

Watch the video below to see why some of our competitors’ customers have been willing to open their design cycles to take advantage of the big NAND performance gains offered by Micron’s MCPs.

Visit our Web site to learn more about our NANDCode software and how you can use it to boost performance in your next mobile design.