Intel and Micron unveil world’s fastest NAND Flash memory

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New high speed NAND is on the way

February 6, 2008 Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. have developed a high speed NAND Flash memory technology targeting data-munching consumer electronics applications that's five times faster than conventional NAND.

The new high speed NAND can reach speeds up to 200 megabytes per second (MB/s) for reading data and 100 MB/s for writing data through the use of new ONFI 2.0 (Open NAND Flash Interface) specification and a four-plane architecture with higher clock speeds. This compares with 40 MB/s for reading data and less than 20 MB/s for writing data for conventional single level cell NAND.

Developed jointly by Intel and Micron and manufactured by the companies’ NAND flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), the new high-speed NAND technology promises a solution to the bottleneck expected when USB 3.0 hits. USB 3.0 is aiming for 10 times the bandwidth of current USB 2.0 solutions (around 4.8 gigabits per second).