Out in Front: December 7, 1995

Mitsubishi has collaborated with Hitachi to develop the first production units of divided bit-line NOR (DINOR) flash-memory devices. DINOR offers the small cells and single power supply of NAND flash and the random-access capability of NOR. Both companies offer the flash devices in 16-Mbit densities organized as 2M X 8 bits and divided into 32 symmetrical 64-kbyte erase blocks. These blocks erase in 10 msec, and you can erase each block at least 100,000 times.

The devices feature automated write and erase, individual block locking, and deep power-down mode. To speed the flash’s slow writes, the 16-Mbit DINOR includes an SRAM-based page buffer. You can fill this buffer with as much as 256 bytes before the device’s internal circuitry transfers the buffer contents to the flash array. The programming time is 1 msec per 256-byte page, and read-access times are 80, 100, and 120 nsec. The DINOR devices, operating from a 3.3V supply, are available in 48-pin TSOPs and 44-pin SOPs. The part numbers for the Mitsubishi and Hitachi devices are M5M29F016FP and HN29W1601, respectively. The Mitsubishi device sells for $50 (1000), although the same product from Hitachi costs $100 (1000). -- by Markus Levy

Hitachi America Ltd, Brisbane, CA. (415) 589-8300.

Mitsubishi Electronics America, Sunnyvale, CA. (408) 730-5900.