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Samsung Electronics says it has developed the world¡¯s first 40-nanometer 32-Gb Flash memory, which is just about the size of a thumbnail but able to store 1,000 MP3 music files. The president of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor business Hwang Chang-gyu announced the next-generation of memory at a press conference in Seoul on Monday.
The chip is the world's first NAND Flash memory incorporating a new technology dubbed Charge Trap Flash (CTF) which stores electrons in nonconductors instead of the ¡°floating-gate¡± storage technology that has been used in manufacturing Flash chips so far, he said. ¡°Our new chip, which is based on the CTF technology is significant in that a Korean electronics company has succeeded in dispelling the long-held view that today¡¯s technology cannot produce chips of less than 50 nanometers,¡± Hwang said. He added the new technology will create new Flash memory chip demand worth W250 trillion (US $1=W958) for the decade after the technology becomes fully commercial in 2008.
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Samsung Electronics¡¯ new 40-nanometer 32 Gb NAND Flash chip. The chips are made from the wafer seen in the back.
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Samsung¡¯s development of the 32 Gb flash memory chip proves the theory that memory density doubles every year for the seventh consecutive year after the development of 256 Mb Flash memory chip in 1999. Hwang first introduced the theory, which bears his name, in a keynote speech at the ISSCC in February 2002. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter. The new 40-nanometer 32-Gigabit NAND flash has as many as 32.8 billion transistors on a surface the size of a thumbnail.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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