Numonyx and Hynix Extend Efforts to Introduce New, Innovative NAND Flash Memory Products...

Tue Aug 5, 2008 11:00pm EDT

[-] Text [+]

Numonyx and Hynix Extend Efforts to Introduce New, Innovative NAND Flash Memory Products and Technologies

Expanded Relationship Promises to Help Grow NAND Businesses
GENEVA & SEOUL, South Korea--(Business Wire)--
Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Numonyx B.V. today announced a
five-year agreement to expand its joint development programs for the
fast-growing NAND flash memory segment. The companies will broaden
NAND product lines and bring future product and technology innovations
designed to address challenges facing NAND technology over the next
five years.

Under the new agreement, Hynix and Numonyx will broaden the scope
of their joint development efforts to deliver leading NAND memory
technology and products and combine resources to accelerate the
development of future NAND technologies and solutions. Also they will
collaborate on mobile DRAM used in multichip packages for mobile
phones.

"To become successful in the rapidly evolving semiconductor
industry, addressing technology issues jointly rather than
independently reduces the risk by leveraging the best of both
companies," said Jong-Kap Kim, Chairman and CEO of Hynix. "Future
joint technology development will be the key success factor in our
alliance and we expect to make significant progress in developing
memory solutions by focusing on the introduction of new products
through systematic co-development in product, software and controller
areas. Together, Hynix and Numonyx will develop a complete range of
products on leading edge technologies that will enable both companies
to win in the NAND segment. We'll now have one of the broadest NAND
design communities in the world and we look forward to continued
success as we now work to develop new NAND memory solutions today and
in the future."

"Success and growth in the NAND segment over the next five years
will require a unique set of capabilities that we believe we can
achieve with Hynix," said Brian Harrison, president and chief
executive officer at Numonyx. "By combining our expert resources,
engineering activities and Hynix's absolute focus on driving cost, we
believe we'll have leading-edge technology, cost-effective and
scalable manufacturing, industry leading memory system "know-how" and
a history of bringing system-level NAND solutions to market very
quickly. The complementary expertise from Hynix will certainly help
strengthen our NAND position in the wireless segment in particular."

Manufacturing NAND memory is getting more complex as the
technology scales, or moves to smaller and smaller manufacturing
lithography nodes. Charge-Trap Device NAND is anticipated to replace
the current mainstream Floating Gate NAND technology and Numonyx's
experience in NOR Flash-based technology should contribute greatly to
this evolution. Moreover, memory suppliers in the next five years will
need to have a deeper understanding of the device physics and overall
memory system level solutions to overcome the challenges.

Effective utilization of Numonyx's software expertise will help in
this effort and make a positive impact in market penetration and
increasing market share for integrated NAND solutions such as microSD,
eMMC, and SSD. The synergies between Hynix and Numonyx, combined with
Numonyx's 40 year legacy of solving difficult non-volatile memory
challenges, and experience developing firmware, microcontroller and
other system solutions will be key factors in helping to solve the
limitations of the technology-moving NAND from raw silicon to systems.

In addition to the collaboration on NAND, the companies also
currently have a joint manufacturing initiative for the production of
300 mm low power mobile DRAM in their Chinese Wuxi joint venture.
Mobile DRAM, commonly stacked with non-volatile memory in multi-chip
packages is used by both companies in solutions for mobile devices.
This collaboration on mobile DRAM will allow both companies to ship
more cost effective, low power multi-chip memory subsystems to
customers requiring small form factors. With the introduction of
world's fastest 1 Gb LPDDR2 product in April, Hynix is now the
industry leader in mobile DRAM products in terms of product diversity,
technology leadership, performance, and compatibility with SDR/DDR
interfaces allowing for single chip solutions.

About Hynix

Hynix Semiconductor Inc. (HSI) of Icheon, Korea, is the world's
top tier memory semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access
Memory chips ("DRAMs") and Flash memory chips to a wide range of
established international customers. The Company's shares are traded
on the Korea Stock Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are
listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Further information about
Hynix is available at www.hynix.com.

About Numonyx

Numonyx designs and manufactures a full complement of integrated
NV-RAM, NOR, NAND and phase change non-volatile memory technologies
and products to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of customers
in the wireless, data and embedded markets. Numonyx combines the
technology and manufacturing expertise of the flash memory divisions
of Intel Corporation and STMicroelectronics, and is dedicated to
providing high density, low power memory technologies and packaging
solutions to a global base of customers. Additional information about
Numonyx is available at www.numonyx.com.

Numonyx B.V.
Mark Miller, 916.377.8459
m: 916.380.2090
mark.miller@numonyx.com
or
Hynix Semiconductor Inc.
Seongae Park, +82.2.3459.5325
m: +82.10.3339.4937
seongae.park@hynix.com