Intel Corp. disclosed this week at Intel Developer Forum several forthcoming NOR flash memory product offerings for the cellular and embedded market segments as additions to its 2005 product portfolio. The announcement demonstrates the company’s strong commitment to the flash memory market and poses competition to other key players, namely Spansion of Advanced Micro Devices and Samsung Electronics.

“Intel achieved great momentum in the non-volatile memory business in 2004 with its industry-leading NOR flash product line, and we are approaching 2005 with even more focus and determination. By adding these new products, we are doubling our NOR product portfolio to meet both our cellular and embedded customer requirements for high performance, high reliability and code execution,” said Darin Billerbeck, vice president and general manager, Intel Flash Products Group.

The first product disclosed for the cellular market segment is code-named “Sibley”, the first NOR multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory device manufactured on Intel’s 90nm process technology. The Sibley family will offer fast NOR read speeds to enable zero-wait code execution at up to 108MHz. In addition, Sibley write speeds of up to 500KB per second will enable the rapid data storage of multimedia images required in today's wireless handsets. This product family will increase the NOR flash density reach with a monolithic 512Mb device, as well as support multiple RAM interfaces to provide the design flexibility for cellular OEMs.

Intel also revealed flash software for the cellular market segment code-named “Naubinway”, the next generation of Intel Flash Data Integrator (FDI) flash file system designed for multimedia phones. Naubinway will minimize software overhead to offer peak flash performance when storing large files such as digital images, digital music and video streams in handsets.

Intel also unveiled its “Sixmile”, a new flash product family designed specifically for the embedded market segment, will be Intel’s lowest cost-per-bit embedded flash solution. The Sixmile product family based on proven StrataFlash technology will provide a wide range of densities, packages and features that will support the diverse applications in market segments such as wired communications, consumer electronics and industrial.

Industry analysts estimate that the embedded market segment where Sixmile is targeted could total more than $9 billion in the next four years.

All of the technology products disclosed will launch in 2005 and be available to cellular and embedded customers this year.