Micron Technology, Inc. (NYSE:MU) announced mass production of new
NAND flash memory products using its award-winning 34-nanometer
(nm) process technology. As consumers demand increased capacity to
store more music, videos, photos, and applications in ever smaller
portable electronic devices, manufacturers need a storage solution that
delivers on capacity, performance, and size. Micron’s new 16- and
32-gigabit (Gb) NAND chips pair large capacity with performance,
providing a compelling solution for today’s demanding portable storage
requirements that are tailored to end-customer product dimensions.
The newly architected 32Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND chip is 17
percent smaller than Micron’s first-generation 32Gb chip. The 16Gb MLC
NAND chip, at just 84mm², provides high-capacity in an ultra tiny
package. Micron is also now sampling 8- and 16Gb single-level cell (SLC)
NAND chips using the 34nm process.
Additionally, Lexar Media, Inc. – a subsidiary of Micron and a leading
provider of consumer memory products for digital devices – is taking
advantage of Micron’s new 34nm NAND products by delivering a wide range
of flash memory cards and USB flash drives utilizing this technology.
“Our industry-leading NAND products are opening new possibilities for
some of the world’s most popular consumer electronic devices,” said
Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron’s memory group. “With our new
16- and 32Gb NAND chips in mass production, we are enabling customers to
design cost-effective, high-capacity storage in their small-form factor
products, using less space and fewer die. In addition, the high-speed
interface is ideal in the industry’s quest to continue to increase
throughput performance for SSDs.”
Both products feature an ONFI 2.1 synchronous interface that delivers
transfer speeds of up to 200 megabytes per second (MB/s). In comparison,
traditional SLC NAND is limited to 40 MB/s. With this improved transfer
speed, the interface delivers the fastest read and write throughputs
offered in today’s NAND devices. And with solid state drives (SSDs)
trending toward a SATA 6 Gb/second interface, the high-speed NAND
interface enables manufacturers to design products that deliver twice
the throughput of today’s existing SATA 3Gb/s solutions. Customers can
expect this high-speed interface designed into all future high-density
Micron® NAND products.
Micron 34nm NAND Enabling New High-Capacity Memory Cards from Lexar
Media
Lexar Media is utilizing Micron’s high-capacity 34nm technology in its
high-performance memory cards, including the new Lexar®
Platinum II 32GB Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC™) memory card
and the Lexar
16GB microSDHC™ mobile memory card. By the end of September,
Micron’s new 34nm NAND will also be used in a wide range of Lexar
microSD™ and microSDHC cards, Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) cards, and
various capacities of Secure Digital, SDHC, CompactFlash®, and Memory
Stick PRO Duo™ cards. Additionally, Micron 34nm NAND will be used in
Lexar’s JumpDrive® USB flash drives, including JumpDrive Retrax,
JumpDrive TwistTurn, JumpDrive FireFly, and JumpDrive Secure II Plus.
“By integrating the increased capacity and performance of Micron’s new
34nm NAND into Lexar’s flash memory products, we are giving our
customers the ability to take full advantage of their digital cameras,
phones and devices,” said Greg Rhine, vice president of sales and
product marketing at Lexar Media. “With Lexar’s cost-effective,
high-capacity, and high-speed memory cards and USB flash drives,
consumers can capture more pictures and videos, listen to more music,
and transfer data between their devices even faster than before.”
The first Lexar memory card to feature Micron’s new 32Gb NAND chip is
the new 32GB Lexar Platinum II SDHC memory card. With the ability to
store up to 12 hours of high-definition (HD) video or more than 20,000
5-megapixel images, the increased capacity enables photographers to
capture important events and memories with photos and HD video. Beyond
video and photography, the Lexar Platinum II 32GB SDHC memory card can
be used as a convenient way to expand the available storage in today’s
emerging, ultra-portable notebook computer applications, such as
netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs).
In addition to its high capacity, the new Lexar Platinum II SDHC card is
speed-rated at 60x (Class 4), offering a minimum-sustained write speed
of 9MB per second that enables photo enthusiasts to take advantage of
their camera’s burst-mode setting to capture many images in rapid
succession. In addition, a minimum-sustained read speed of 12MB per
second ensures fast transfers of images from the card to a host computer.
Micron’s tiny 16Gb, 34nm NAND chip, which is approximately one-third the
size of a keyboard key, is ideal for ultra-small, high-capacity microSD
cards, such as the Lexar 16GB microSDHC mobile memory card. The Lexar
16GB microSDHC card allows consumers to expand the capabilities of their
digital devices, such as mobile phones with photo and video capture
capabilities, MP3 players, and smartphones. Consumers can store up to
48,000 2-megapixel JPEG photos, 4,000 songs, or 80 hours of
standard-definition video content on the Lexar 16GB microSDHC card when
used in a digital device.*
*For test parameters, visit the Lexar mobile memory capacity chart,
here: http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/mobile_cap_chart.html
Relevant Links
There are other ways to stay up-to-date on Micron and Lexar news:
About Micron
Micron Technology, Inc. is one of the world’s leading providers of
advanced semiconductor solutions. Through its worldwide operations,
Micron manufactures and markets DRAMs,
NAND
flash memory, CMOS
image sensors, other semiconductor components, and memory modules
for use in leading-edge computing, consumer, networking, and mobile
products. Micron’s common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange
(NYSE) under the MU symbol. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc.,
visit www.micron.com.
About Lexar Media
Lexar Media is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of NAND
flash and DRAM memory products under the Lexar and Crucial® brand names.
Lexar offers products in all major flash and DRAM memory categories,
including consumer and enterprise-level USB flash drives,
industry-leading memory cards for photography, and all popular form
factors of memory cards for mobile devices. For computers, Lexar also
offers a full range of DRAM computer memory upgrades for PCs and Mac®
systems, and solid state drives (SSDs). An industry leader in
innovative, patented flash memory technology, Lexar is vertically
integrated with Micron Technology, Inc. one of the largest semiconductor
manufacturers worldwide.
For more information about Lexar, visit www.lexar.com.
For more information about Crucial products, visit www.crucial.com,
www.crucial.com/uk
or www.crucial.com/eu.
Lexar Media, Inc. is a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc. Lexar Media
is a division of Micron Europe Limited, a division of Micron
Semiconductor Asia Pte. Ltd., and a division of Micron Japan, Ltd.
Lexar. When Memory Matters.™
©2009 Micron Technology, Inc. Micron and the Micron orbit logo are
trademarks of Micron Technology, Inc. Lexar, the Lexar logo, and
JumpDrive are trademarks of Lexar Media, Inc. All other trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.
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