History (1991): Are We Going to Store Data on Flash Memories?

Flash cards for storage are small, removable, fast to read and reliable without any mechanical parts.

But their capacities are still low, just as reading time and prices high.

Their first applications will be restrained to palmtop type computers.

Flash card promoters are trying to impress us with potential applications for this new storage support close to the size of a credit card (85.6×54.0x3.3mm), pioneered by Intel, Toshiba and Seeq Technology in the mid-80s.

In the morning, for instance, you’ll insert the card in a terminal connected to a satellite, you’ll fill it with your favorite daily news, and then in the subway you’ll read information on the screen of a computer no larger than a half of sheet of paper. You’ll type “weather forecast” for example and you’ll know if it’s going to rain when you leave the station.

And still according to its promoters, this card will be able to replace silicon cards, floppy disk drives and even HDDs in notebook and other coming palm-sized computers. It will be used to load typographic fonts on printers, drivers for peripherals, BIOS or the latest microcomputer OS. It can also be used as a modem, a camera or a digital VHS memory, and others we’re not mentioning.

No mechanical parts
We have to admit that this tiny, extra-light, removable media called “flash disk” when it doesn’t even contain a disk but only one or more integrated EPROM type circuits with non-volatile memory and that can be electrically erasable does have some qualities.

It doesn’t lose its contents when power is removed (no battery required). It differs from most EPROMs that can be erased when exposed to intense ultraviolet light for a period of about 15-20 minutes. They also have a small electric power requirement (one little watt, in 5 or 12V) on account of CMOS technology, with a fast reading time (100 to 300 nanoseconds), one hundred times less than a HDD, no latency time, with random access, rather reliable since no part moves, and finally no special R/W unit, simply an interface and an ordinary 68-pin connector plug.

Still too expensive
But they have nevertheless some limits. The capacity of a flash card generally reaches 1MB, 4 at the best, even if some promise more for the future.

When a program or some data is erased, it’s definitively. There never will be an utility software that could eventually recover them.

The number of read/write cycles is limited to approximately 100,000 and the connector is manufactured with a method that divides by 10 the number of insertions.

If reading time is fast, average writing time is close to 1s for each 128KB zone, because you first have to erase data on the entire chip flash before you can write.

On Digipro’s Flashdisk board, the I/O write file time is only 1.63Kb/s. And just like Digipro explains it, it’s more a ROWS (read often, write seldom) drive.

Very few small computer manufacturers have adopted these memories, and not always with success (Airis, Atari, Casio, Poqet and Sharp). On the latest notebooks, there only are diskettes and/or HDDs. And finally, a decisive element, a discouraging price.

For instance, Fujitsu’s price for a 1MB card is $295 in OEM quantity 1,000. Even if a spokesman from the Japanese company says it’s certain that in a year from now it will cost half price. Maybe, but you have to double or triple it for an end user and compare it with $8/MB on a 40MB HDD. Even if prices drop, it won’t be enough.

Soon IBM?
The short history of data processing has proved that you have to be careful with new memories that could revolutionize industry.

Bubble memories that never bursted are an example, even Intel is giving them up.

You should be even more skeptic when you consider removable media. We still use 2MB diskettes when technology is able to produce two and a half and even ten times more.

In this field, only big actors can show the lead to the rest of the data processing companies. And here in fact, there’s still a chance left. Rumors say that, around March 1991, IBM will launch a small unit, 3 times the size of a calculator, without a keyboard, but a touch-sensitive screen, and it seems that its external memory would be a flash card. IBM being in the PCMCIA association adds to the truthfulness of this announcement. Furthermore, the chairman and president of PCMCIA, John Reimer, marketing manager, IC memory cards, Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc. (San Jose, CA) told us that Big Blue has just agreed to add its name to the list of 64 companies that “had announced or planned to announce products based on the PCMCIA standard.”

Flash notebooks
They could be a future goal, thinks Ted Jenkins, president of Intel Corp. when he states the possibility of coming down to 1$/MB in the year 2000 on flash cards and to produce what he names a “flash notebook”, a half-pound 7x9inch computer just a half-inch thick with the power of a PC and a built-in cellular phone/modem/facsimile, with 50MB flash memory, with a price expected to be as low as $200.

But in those days, the form factor of a HDD drive will maybe have reached one-inch and the price of a megabyte under one dollar.

The latest manufacturers announcements:

1986: The devices were given the name “flash” by Toshiba that was the first to describe the bulk erasure feature that cleared the entire memory array – an aspect similar to EPROM erasures.

May 90: Western Digital Corp. is about to enter the market of flash memory. The modules will be made by SunDisk Corp.

June 90: Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) introduced 1 and 2Mb flash memories in a thin small outline package (TSOP). They are manufactured with Intel’s 1-micron EPROM Tunnel Oxide (ETOX II) process. Access time of the 2Mb version is 150 nanosecondes. The 28F020 2Mbt sells for $45.20 in quantities of 10,000. The 28F010 1Mb, 200 nanosecondds device cost $17.95.

September 90: Advanced Micro Devices (Sunnyvale, CA) has introduced its first flash memory device, the Am28F0 10, organized 128K x 8. It is priced at $26.50 in 100-piece quantities for a 200 nanosecondes version in 32-pin PLCC package.

October 90: Intel’s Flash Memory Operation (Folsom, CA) has introduced IC card in 1- and 4MB densities, based on array of ETOX EPROM Tunnel Oxide flash memory devices in TSOP packages. In 1,000-piece quantities, the 1MB card, the iMC001FLKA, is priced at $298, while the 4MB one, the iMC004FLKA at 1,198$. The read access time is 250 nanoseconds. The cards features a 2 second per 256KB block erase for the 4MB card, a one-second per 128KB block erase for the 1MB card.

October 90: From SGS-Thomson Microlectronics (Phoenix, AZ), the ST93C46A and the ST93CS56 are 1K and 2K devices built with a special CMOS M3 process. The units have a 10-year data retention guarranty even after one million erase/write cycles. Prices in quantities of 10,000 are $.60 for the 1K version, $.80 for the 2K version.

November 90: Digipro Inc. (Huntsville, AL) introduced at Comdex Fall’ 89 the first PC drive using Intel’s flash memory, the Flashdisk. An on-board disk controller can provide up to 16MB of bootable storage. A 1MB Flashdisk costs $886, 2MB $1,199 and 8MB $3,349.

November 90: Fujitsu Microelectronics (San Jose, CA) announced the addition of two new flash memory cards, the MB98A8101 and the MB98A8122, available in 1MBe and 4MB densities respectively. They utilize Intel’s ETOX II single cell EPROM Tunnel Oxyde technology. Pricing for samples currently available of the 1MB and 4MB are $495 and $1,495. Production pricing in 1000-piece quantities is $295 for 1MB and $1,195 for 4MB.

November 90: Catalyst Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA) made its entry in flash memory with initial offer of 1Mbt (128Kbit x 8) devices. The CAT28F010 1.2-micron CMOS flash, based on a single-transistor cell, is available with speed of 120, 150 and 200 nanosecondes. In 10,000 quantities, the 200 nanosecond flash will cost $20 each.

November 90: Intel Corp. signed a pact with Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp. to transfer process technology to UMC for EPROM products to be sold under the Intel label. The 5-year agreement will concentrate primary on flash memory.

November 90: Toshiba America Electronics Components (Irvine, CA) introduced a 1Mb (128K x 8) flash memory available in 150 and 200 nanosecond versions. Production is scheduled for January 1991. Price of the TC58F1001P/F15 is $15 in quantities of 100.

November 90: Databook Inc. (Ithaca, NY) announced the ThinCard drive, that allows the transfer of information on an IC memory card from one computer, for example a palmtop, to another like a desktop. It emulates a floppy disk drive. It reads and programs flash cards. One unit is priced at $217 in quantities of 1,000.

December 90: Atmel (San Jose, CA) and Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX) have developed functionally compatible electrical specs for 256Kb single-voltage flash memories. Atmel plans to sample a 1Mb device in early 1991. TI plans volume production in the first half of 1991.

December 90: Fujitsu Ltd. and Intel Corp. have agreed to jointly define and develop a series of flash memory cards. As a result of this agreement, Intel introduces its 1 and 4MB flash memory cards in October 1990, while Fujitsu unveiled its flash memory card line at last Comdex. Fujitsu will get volume pricing and guaranteed allocations of Intel flash devices.

January 91: Seeq Technology (San Jose, CA) has chosen Taiwan’s Huaion Microelectronics Corp. (HMC) to help it meet manufacturing needs, giving HMC about 10% in Seeq. The agreement follows a foundry pact with Philips Components Signetics replacing National Semiconductor as Seeq’s flash memory development partner.

*Other contenders in flash memories: Exel Microelectronics, Hitachi, MicroChip Technology, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, NEC, Oki, Samsung Electric, Waferscale, White Technology.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠36, published on January 1991.