Capacity for 4,000 MP3 Files

Samsung Electronics announced on September 20 that it has succeeded in developing a 1/2000, hair-thin (60 nm) 8-gigabyte NAND flash memory module.

The company also announced a management strategy designed to advance its non-semiconductor division, just like its central processing unit (CPU) for mobile phones, along with the semiconductor division, which has already been leading the industry.

“Samsung successfully commercialized the 60 nm technology for flash memory for the first time in the world and proved its leading position in the semiconductor industry,” according to Hwang Chang-gyu, Samsung’s Semiconductor Division president, in the press conference at Shilla Hotel. “Next year, products adopting this technology will be released,” he added.

The 16-gigabye flash memory that can be produced by using the 60 nm flash memory can contain 10 DVD-quality films or 4,000 mp3 songs.

Since the release of its 100 nm product in 2001, the company has produced the most advanced products, such as the 90 nm in 2002 and 70 nm in 2003, in the semiconductor industry, perpetually leading it.

On the same day, the newest 80nm 2-gigabyte DDR2 DRAM—the world’s best capacity—and 667 NHz CPU for mobile phones also debuted.

“Samsung already ranked first in the memory semiconductor field such as DRAM, SRAM and flash memory. We’ll soon be the leader in the multi-chip (MCP) technology, and by 2007, we’ll be the leader in non-semiconductor technology such as mobile phone CPUs and image sensor (CIS) chips,” said President Hwang.

Among flash memories for saving information without power, this product is suitable for quickly saving a lot of information. It is also used as storage for digital cameras, mp3 players, and mobile phones.

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com