Intel Corp.'s new NAND group chief recently outlined the company's strategy and revealed a surprise: The chip giant hopes to be the technology and solid-state drive (SSD) leader, but it is not seeking to be the top player in the discrete market.
Intel wants to avoid the cyclical, market share game in the NAND flash chip sector against the likes of Samsung, Hynix and Toshiba. But Intel dropped hints it wants to unseat Samsung as the No. 1 player in SSDs.
What's surprising about its discrete chip strategy is Intel generally aspires to be No. 1 in a given market, such as processors and chipsets. Generally, if Intel lags in a market, it exits the sector. For example, Intel has exited the ASIC market, communication ICs, NOR flash, branded PCs, supercomputers and other sectors for one reason or another over the years.
SSD is a different story. In fact, Intel this year plans to ship a line of SSDs, based on a new family of 25nm parts made by the company's venture with Micron Technology Inc., said Tom Rampone, the new VP and general manager of Intel's NAND Solutions Group.
"We want to be a leader in SSDs," he told EE Times at the event here. In 2010, "we want to bring SSDs out of the niche markets and into the mainstream."
Over the years, though, Intel has experienced some ups and downs in flash. The company is said to have introduced the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988. Although it became the process and market share leader in NOR, the company generally lost money in the business. In NOR, there were (and still are) too many players in a declining market.
Several years ago, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. saw the light and spun out their NOR venture into a company called Spansion. More recently, Intel jettisoned its NOR unit. That business was combined with STMicroelectronics Inc.'s flash unit to form what is now Numonyx NV.
NAND arena
Intel did not give up in flash, however. In 2006, Micron and Intel came together to form a new NAND fab venture company: IM Flash Technologies LLC. The first IM Flash fab, a 300mm plant, is located in Lehi. Under the terms, Micron obtains 51 percent of the output from the fab, while Intel gains the remaining share.
The $2 billion fab itself is a four-level structure with about 200,000-square-foot of clean room space. There are 1,500 employees at IM Flash, who work four shifts in a 24-hour period. "From a technology perspective, I'd put this fab against anyone else in the world," said Dave Baglee, IM Flash's co-executive officer, in an interview at the event.
Micron itself entered the NAND business with a 90nm device, followed by a 72nm part. Those products were a generation or two behind the competition, namely Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and Toshiba Corp.
IM Flash itself started production with a 50nm process in 2006, followed by a 34nm process in 2008. With 34nm, Micron and Intel managed to surpass the competition in process technology, said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's memory group.
As reported, Intel and Micron this week regained the process technology lead in NAND flash, by rolling out the first in a family of 25nm devices. The first 25nm NAND device is a multi-level-cell (MLC), 8Gbyte device, which is said to reduce IC count by 50 percent over previous products.
With the device, Intel-Micron duo will retake the NAND process lead over the SanDisk-Toshiba duo and Samsung, which have recently announced 32- and 30nm products, respectively. Another player, Hynix Semiconductor Inc., has a 26nm device waiting in the wings.