Session 2 overview - non-volatile memory

Consumer-electronic applications such as cellular phones and digital cameras are driving a need for higher-performance and lower-cost-memory solutions. This year's Conference by is marked a strong show of non-volatile memories. In the Flash memory arena, we are seeing major breakthroughs in density, performance and cutting-edge lithography. We have seen a sprinkling of multilevel Flash papers since 1995. This year, multi-level Flash makes up the majority of the non-volatile memory presentations that report on new design approaches. Designs utilizing multi-level techniques have historically been lower-performance. With design and technology breakthroughs, we are seeing high-performance read and write times combined with multi-level storage. This session will also look into new circuit techniques to achieve much-faster lower-power flash programming. As well, recent advancements in the area of emerging nonvolatile technologies will be reported.