Numonyx, Samsung co-operate on phase-change memory

LONDON — Nonvolatile memory supplier Numonyx BV (Geneva, Switzerland) and memory chip giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have announced that they will develop package specifications for phase-change memory products together.

Common specifications between the two companies will be completed this year, with both companies expecting to have compliant devices available in 2010.

Numonyx and Samsung are the two leading companies researching phase-change memory, a dense non-volatile memory based on a thermally-induced reversible change between an amorphous and crystalline state in a chalcogenide material.

Numonyx has been supplying selected customers with a 128-Mbit memory made in a 90-nm process to a NOR-flash-like pin-out since December 2008, The upcoming standard, based on the JEDEC 42.6 interface definition is set to be an implementation of an LPDDR2 interface. The standard is set to be applied to a next-generation memory at 1-Gbit implemented in 45-nm process that is being aimed at mobile phone, embedded systems and high-end computing devices, Numonyx said.

Phase-change memory offers faster read and write speeds at lower power than conventional NOR and NAND flash memory, and allows for the bit-alterability normally seen in RAM, Numonyx has asserted.