More than an hour later, Zhao Ye arrived at Loongson Design Company.
NAND flash memory is actually only designed; it hasn't started tape-out yet, let alone mass production. It won't be available until the end of the year at the earliest.
"Boss, this is the Loongson EDA-1.0 simulation experiment report."
Fujio Masuoka operates the Loongson EDA-1.0 software on a computer to retrieve NAND data.
Zhao Ye sat in front of the computer and studied it carefully. Since it was the result displayed by Loongson EDA-1.0, there shouldn't be any problem.
He turned to Fujio Masuoka and said, "Very good, we can do further testing. If there are no problems, we can start fabrication."
Chip fabrication is very expensive, so when designing chips, there are more detailed tests to make sure there are no problems before proceeding with the fabrication.
Tape-out is essentially trial production. Once tape-out is successful, the chip can be mass-produced.
Zhao Ye estimated that the NAND flash memory developed by Fujio Masuoka and others had a complex manufacturing process and high cost. The production cost of a 20MB NAND flash memory was over $100.
It still has a lot of potential!
If it sells for $500, the demand will definitely be huge.
NANDSH can be developed into CF cards, SD cards, SM cards, etc., with broad market prospects.
However, by then we'll need to develop USB interfaces and various card readers...
But that's okay, Wujiang Group will launch its own branded computer next year, which will include the development of the USB bus protocol.
"Contact companies like IBM and HP to see if we can jointly develop a USB serial interface standard. If they're unwilling, Wujiang Group will have to go it alone and win market recognition through its products, thus making Wujiang Group's USB bus protocol an established industry standard!" Zhao Ye thought to himself.
Fujio Masuoka nodded immediately upon hearing this, as he was also looking forward to the market launch of NAND flash memory.
Zhao Ye thought for a moment and said, "Even if the NAND chip is developed, further development is needed to make it work well. Developers can use NAND flash memory to create portable micro-memory cards that can be used in cameras, computers, mobile phones, multimedia players..."
"Um!"
Masuoka Fujio nodded, also thinking of the application scenarios for NAND, which were roughly the same as Zhao Ye's thoughts.
Zhao Ye shifted his body to make himself more comfortable, and said to Masuoka Fujio, "Oh, by the way, Masuoka Fujio, you guys are using the SLC architecture (single-level cell) for developing NAND, right? That is, single-level cell flash memory, where each cell stores one bit of data."
Fujio Masuoka nodded upon hearing this: "Yes, boss, we are using the SLC architecture!"
Zhao Ye said, "Why not try developing a multi-cell flash memory MLC architecture, which uses a large number of voltage levels and stores two bits of data per cell, resulting in a higher data density!"
MLC technology is the development trend of NAND flash. Just like single-core, dual-core, and quad-core CPUs, MLC technology achieves a multiple leap in capacity by storing more bits per cell, until a more advanced architecture is developed.
In its previous life, Intel invented the MLC architecture in the mid-1990s, which is only seven or eight years ago. In fact, this technology is based on NAND flash memory, and Wujiang Group could have developed it much earlier.
Upon hearing this, Fujio Masuoka's eyes lit up, and he was bursting with inspiration.
MLC technology can precisely control the amount of charge on the floating gat, allowing it to exhibit four different storage states, each representing two binary values...
Therefore, large-capacity NAND flash memory can be developed using MLC.
"I understand now. Using the MLC architecture not only offers greater capacity, but the production cost may also be lower than that of the SLC architecture!" Fujio Masuoka exclaimed excitedly.
Zhao Ye nodded slightly. Indeed, as Masuoka Fujio said, the production cost of MLC was lower than that of SLC.
but……
MLC is not without its drawbacks.
The most obvious drawback is that its lifespan is shorter than that of SLC. The MLC architecture can only withstand 10,000 erase/write cycles, while the SLC architecture can withstand 100,000 erase/write cycles.
Secondly, the access speed is slow. Under current technological conditions, the theoretical access speed of MLC chips can only reach about 6MB, while the access speed of SLC architecture is more than three times faster than that of MLC architecture!
Another point is that MLC consumes more current than SLC. Under the same operating conditions, the current consumption of MLC is about 15% higher than that of SLC.
However, for now, products still prioritize large capacity.
That's why Zhao Ye reminded Masuoka Fujio to develop MLC flash memory.
However, SLC flash memory is also very important and will have wide applications in the future, so a small number of people can be assigned to continue researching SLC to maintain the leading position of SLC flash memory technology.
Zhao Ye gave Masuoka Fujio some instructions and then left the company.
Masuoka Fujio, however, was as energetic as if he had been injected with chicken blood, and couldn't help but look forward to the day when NAND went public, when he would give his former employer, Toshiba Group, a good slap in the face!
The thought of Toshiba's top executives filled him with immense excitement.
"I spent several years developing NANDSH, and even if I didn't achieve anything, I still had my share of frustrations, and you only gave me a few hundred dollars as a reward. Now, I, Fujio Masuoka, can finally hold my head high!"
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