Seoul - South Korean semiconductor giant Samsung Electronics on Monday unveiled the world's first 16-gigabit Nand flash memory chip, a device the firm said will usher in a new era in data storage.
The new flash memory chip boasts the smallest cell size and highest density, making it its easier to store massive amounts of data on small portable devices.
It can store data equivalent to 200 years of a 40-page broadsheet daily newspaper, 8 000 digital music files or 32 hours of DVD-quality movie files on a single memory card.
Samsung said it was the world's first flash memory chip with the cutting-edge 50-nanometer technology. Currently, 80-nano technology is the standard for memory chips.
It holds 16.4bn functional transistors, each measuring one two-thousandths of a meter, the thickness of a human hair.
The new chip will accelerate expansion of the Nand flash market across mobile and portable digital applications as an alternative to mini-hard disk drivers and even hard disk drives for laptops, it said.
"Memory is opening a bold new world in consumer electronics," said Samsung's semiconductor business division president, Hwang Chang-Gyu, adding that the industry was at a major turning point in the use of memory for data storage.
"The future of Nand is setting the stage for an irreversible shift in the design of digital end-products as Nand becomes the key storage medium for data in virtually any portable form."
Nand flash memory chips will eventually replace other storage mediums especially those used in mobile products, creating a "flash rush," he said.
Samsung, the world largest maker of dynamic random access memory chips (Drams), plans to begin mass production of the 16-gigabit Nand flash memory chip from the second half of 2006.
Samsung expects the global market for 16-gigabit Nand flash memory chips to grow to $14bn by 2010. Unlike conventional memory chips for personal computers, flash memory can retain and store information even when a device's power is turned off.
"With cards containing multiple 16-gigabit flash memory chips, you will be able to take your entire music and personal video libraries with you on one small portable device," Hwang said.
Flash memory is gaining popularity for use in portable electronics devices such has mobile phones, digital cameras and other consumer appliances, he said.
Hwang said Samsung expected sales of $6.4bn this year in flash memory chips, up from $4.1bn last year.
"Consumers are looking for ever smaller, more stylish mobile devices. This poses a challenge for the semiconductor industry to create chips that meet the high-performance, high-density and minimum space requirements but don't become a power drain," Hwang said.
The global semiconductor market will grow five percent this year, with Samsung sales outpacing it by a considerable margin to an all-time high in the third quarter, he added.
