Samsung Electronics, Numonyx Join Forces on PCM Product Specifications

Jun 24, 2009 16:10 Nikkei Electronics Asia

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Numonyx BV have said they are jointly developing market specifications for Phase Change Memory (PCM) products, a next-generation memory technology that will help enable makers of feature-rich handsets and mobile applications, embedded systems and high-end computing devices to meet the increasing performance and power demands for platforms loaded with content and data.

Creating common hardware and software compatibility for PCM products is expected to help simplify designs and shorten development time, enabling manufacturers to quickly transition to high-performance, low-power PCM products from both companies.

"Our joint efforts with Numonyx will enable a more secure path for introducing PCM into the mobile environment," said SeiJin Kim, vice president, mobile memory technology planning and enabling, Samsung Electronics. "We anticipate that PCM will eventually be a major addition to our family of memory products, one that will nicely complement our other mobile memory solutions and ultimately increase our leadership in the industry."

The companies are developing common specifications -- or "pin for pin" hardware and software compatibility -- for mobile, embedded and other potential computing applications supporting the JEDEC LPDDR2 Low Power Memory Device standard. The LPDDR2 standard offers advanced power management features, a shared interface for nonvolatile memory (NVM) and volatile memory (SDRAM), and a range of densities and speeds.

Common specifications will be completed this year, with both companies expecting to have compliant devices available next year.

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