Flash Nano

In preparation for the NanoCommerce Forum/SEMI conference in Chicago, I’ve been talking out nanotech-enabled memory chips like Nantero’s carbon nanotube memory and NVE’s MRAM (see previous posts.

John Oliver, from Innov8 Consulting (Calgary, Alberta), and a fellow BCC industry analyst, sent me an e-mail reminding me that nanotech is also invading flash memory processes.

“As a follow up to yesterday’s carbon nanotube memory post,” says John, “are you aware of Freescale’s nanoscale flash memory technology? This is now in commercial product launch mode targeted for release sometime 2006. The first generation platform, which is adaptable to existent clean room fabrication technologies, is based on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of silicon nanocrystals (around 5 nm in diameter) with 10E12/cm2 (equivalent to 20-30%) wafer coverage. Its nanomemory densities are claimed to be well beyond its competitors (e.g. Samsung, Toshiba) ‘top down’ conventional technologies. Coupled with this is the near-future potential of adopting solution-based colloidal quantum dots. These offer tighter particle size distributions (PSDs), and hence much higher self-ordering, hence density, of Freescale’s first generation CVD synthesized Si ncs.”

Well, no John, I wasn’t aware, but thanks for keeping me informed. Keep those cards and letters coming in folks. Freescale, incidentally, is the former semiconductor business of Motorola, now spun off as a stand alone business, with almost $6 billion in revenue. It has attributes lacking in most strictly nano tech companies, large size and revenues.

I’m in Chicago now, at McCormick Center, which is about a block from the lake and almost as big as the terminal at O’Hare. Nanotech is certainly playing bigger venues, these days.