16G Chip

Samsung unveils 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chip

Agence France-Presse

SEOUL--South Korean semiconductor giant Samsung Electronics said Monday it had developed the world's first 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chips using 50-nanometer technology.

Samsung said the new memory chip can store data equivalent to 200 years of a 40-page broadsheet daily newspaper, 8,000 digital music files or 32 hours of DVD-quality movie files on a single memory card.

The firm said it was the world's first flash memory chip with the cutting-edge 50-nanometer technology. Currently, 80-nano technology is the standard for memory chips.

The new chip holds 16.4 billion functional transistors, each measuring one two-thousandths of a meter, the thickness of a human hair, Samsung said.

Samsung, the world largest maker of dynamic random access memory chips (DRAMs), plans to begin mass production of the 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chip from the second half of 2006.

Samsung expects the global market for 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chips to grow to 14 billion billion dollars by 2010. Unlike conventional memory chips for personal computers, flash memory can retain and store information even when a device's power is turned off.

"Memory is opening a bold new world in consumer electronics," said Samsung's semiconductor business division president, Hwang Chang-Gyu.

"With cards containing multiple 16-gigabit flash memory chips, you will be able to take your entire music and personal video libraries with you on one small portable device," he said.

Flash memory is gaining popularity for use in portable electronics devices such has mobile phones, digital cameras and other consumer appliances, he said.

Hwang said Samsung expected sales of 6.4 billion dollars this year in flash memory chips, up from 4.1 billion dollars last year.

"Consumers are looking for ever smaller, more stylish mobile devices. This poses a challenge for the semiconductor industry to create chips that meet the high-performance, high-density and minimum space requirements but don't become a power drain," Hwang said.

The global semiconductor market will grow five percent this year, with Samsung sales outpacing it by a considerable margin to an all-time high in the third quarter, he added.