Toshiba shrinks memory chips by 30 per cent

Toshiba has announced the development of a 16Gb Nand Flash memory chip fabricated with 43nm process technology co-developed with SanDisk.

The products have a chip area of 120 square millimetres, less than 30 per cent that of same density Nand Flash memories jointly developed by Toshiba and SanDisk and fabricated with 56nm process technology.

Toshiba explained that memory cells are grouped and controlled in Nand strings of 64 cells aligned in parallel, double the number of 56nm devices, with a dummy word-line at either end to prevent program disturbance.

This technology contributes to a reduction in the number of select gates and improves memory area efficiency, the company said.

Toshiba will start shipments of commercial samples of new 16Gb single-chip, multi-level cell Nand Flash memories from today, and start mass production from March.

Mass production of 32Gb Nand Flash memories is scheduled for early in the third quarter of this year.