Samsung Announces Production Start-up of its Next-generation Nonvolatile Memory – PRAM

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

TAIPEI, TAIWAN, September 22, 2009 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the

world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, today
announced at the sixth annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum held at the
Westin Taipei Hotel that is has begun producing 512-Megabit (Mb) PRAM
memory. A new non-volatile memory technology that features high-performance
and low power consumption, PRAM (phase change random access memory) is
expected to usher in the next generation of non-volatile memory technology
for mobile devices.

High-density and high-performance are the key technology requirements for
smartphones, however these attributes can increase power consumption
significantly. Because PRAM’s greatly simplified data access logic requires
less support from DRAM, its power usage is very efficient. By using PRAM,
the battery life of a handset can be extended over 20 percent.

„We believe PRAM will make a highly significant contribution to the
efficiency of mobile phone designs, particularly for multimedia handsets
and smartphones,“ said Sei-Jin Kim, vice president, mobile memory planning
and enabling group, Memory Division, Samsung Electronics. „We expect it to
become one of our core memory products in the future.“

The 512Mb PRAM can erase 64 Kiloword (KW) in 80 milliseconds (ms), which is
over 10 times faster than NOR flash memory. In data segments of 5 Megabyte
(MB), PRAM can erase and rewrite data approximately seven-times faster than
NOR flash.

More scalable than other memory architectures now under research, PRAM
combines the speed of RAM for processing functions with the non-volatile
characteristics of flash memory for storage.

Samsung’s first PRAM is produced using 60-nanometer class technology, the
same process technology used in NOR flash production today. Finer
technology nodes will be applied in future-generations of PRAM to expedite
further commercial adoption.