Motorola Buys Into SST's Flash

In line with its business strategy to offer design engineers a spectrum of non-volatile memory products, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (Austin, TX) has banded with flash vendor Silicon Storage Technology (SST; Sunnyvale, CA). Under the terms of the accord, Motorola will license SST's SuperFlash 0.50 micron and 0.25 micron generations of memory technology.

Motorola says its goal in adopting SST's flash is to ensure that Motorola can fully address the burgeoning market requirements of networking and computing, consumer, transportation, and wireless markets. Motorola expects the logic compatibility of SST's SuperFlash technology will make it a technology of choice for OEMs.

Simple and Scalable

Motorola indicates it additionally selected SST's SuperFlash because of its reliability, inherent scalability to finer process geometries, and because it lends itself to simpler circuit design for OEMs. Motorola says it intends to make use of the SuperFlash technology through design optimization, and integration with its processes.

SST's CMOS-compatible SuperFlash is NOR-based technology, with a split-gate cell architecture which uses a reliable thick-oxide process that entails few manufacturing steps. That results in low-cost, as well as high data retention and reliability. The split-gate NOR architecture is suitable for small or medium sector size, and in- or off-system programming.

Initial products will be aimed at low to high byte-counts for 8-, 16-, and 32-bit processor technologies such as Motorola's popular M-CORE, 'HCO8, and 'HC12 micros, as well as its DSP cores. As part of its strategy, the company intends to promote its wares across all markets within the Semiconductor Products Sector as well as to its customers across Motorola divisions.

Addressing Dramatic Growth

"Research shows the use of flash is growing dramatically," points out Scott Anderson, corporate vice president and general manager of Moto's Semiconductor Products Sector. "SST's SuperFlash technology complements our own embedded flash and process technologies. That permits us to quickly bring to market next-generation products in our Digital DNA thrust. SST's technology will serve wireless, consumer and transportation designs, where low-power, low-voltage and high performance are critical."

Motorola joins a growing list of companies licensing SST's SuperFlash technology. These include licensees Acer Semiconductor Manufacturing, IBM, Samsung Electronics, Sanyo Electric, Seiko Epson, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). "The agreement with Motorola now positions SST in the forefront of flash," avows Sohrab Kianian, director, technology licensing and business development at SST. "It's a critical path technology."

Dedicated Resources

For its part, Motorola has formed a Non-Volatile Memory Technology Center. The NVMTC's roadmap outlines a number of approaches OEMs can use to get ahead in the broad market segments Motorola serves. "The NVMTC is addressing the diverse set of needs each market requires through a combination of internal development and external collaboration, " notes Bill Pfaff, the firm's director of the NVMTC. "our plan is to accelerate our flash position by complementing our internal technology development efforts. This agreement will enhance our ability to collaborate with strategic foundry partners, such TSMC. That provides OEMs with a second source option."

For more details, contact Motorola, Semiconductor Products Sector, 6501 William Cannon Drive West, Austin, TX 78735-8598. Contact Silicon Storage Technology, 1171 Sonora Court., Sunnyvale, CA 94086. Phone: (408) 735-9110. email: investor@ssti.com.