Toshiba announces world's smallest class chip size with the 15nm process
Toshiba Corporation has announced that it has developed the world's first [1] 15-nanometre (nm) [2] process technology, which will apply to 2-bit-per-cell 128-gigabit (16 gigabytes) NAND flash memories. Mass production with the new technology will start at the end of April at Fab 5 Yokkaichi Operations, Toshiba's NAND flash fabrication facility (fab), replacing second generation 19 nm process technology, Toshiba's previous flagship process. The second stage of Fab 5 is currently under construction, and the new technology will also be deployed there.
Toshiba has achieved the world's smallest class chip size with the 15nm process plus improved peripheral circuitry technology. The new chips achieve the same write speed as chips formed with second generation 19 nm process technology, but boost the data transfer rate to 533 megabits a second, 1.3 times faster, by employing a high speed interface.
Toshiba is now applying the 15nm process technology 3-bit-per-cell chips, and aims to start mass production in the first quarter of this fiscal year, to June 2014. The company will develop controllers for embedded NAND flash memory in parallel and introduce 3-bit-per-cell products for smartphones and tablets, and will subsequently extend application to notebook PCs by developing a controller compliant with solid state drives (SSD).
Toshiba closely follows its process technology development roadmap to create product competitiveness by applying improved process to production.
[1] As of April 23, 2014. Toshiba survey.
[2] 1 nanometre is 1 x 10-9 or 1 / 1,000,000,000 m.
