the semiconDr blog

Matrix 3D Memory Finds Its Niche

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:27:45 -0400

Last week, one of my favorite tech pundits, John C. Dvorak, tipped me off to the "new" SanDisk SD WORM card on his Tech 5 podcast. Immediately, I wondered if this was related to SanDisk's acquisition a few years ago of Matrix Semiconductor. Back then, my take on Matrix was that it would make a great archival digital film.
Around that time in 2006, I posted about Matrix 3D memory and its subsequent acquisition by SanDisk on the corporate blog I created for Semiconductor Insights. There was an announcement that SanDisk was re-engineering the Matrix technology to be re-writable.
It's bizarre to think that it would be possible to convert essentially a blown fuse (more precisely, anti-fuse, but still that is the essence of how any type of one-time programmable or OTP memory works) into a re-writable memory. But that’s what SanDisk CFO, Judy Bruner, seemed to imply in her EE Times quote:
"We would have 3-bits per cell, 4-bits per cell and three-dimensional memory which we acquired through our acquisition earlier this year of Matrix Semiconductor and which we are busy at work looking at how we evolve that 3D technology from a one-time-programmable to a read-writable type of memory."
Either there was serious confusion about the core Matrix Semiconductor technology, or SanDisk was using the acquisition buzz to promote one of their own developments that was connected in some way to the stackable or three dimensional concept in Matrix OTP. Perhaps there was even a patent related to 3D memory that SanDisk needed from the Matrix IP pool, but I am confident that the any new 3D re-writable memory would not be using the original Matrix storage element.
I thought it would be prudent to check with SanDisk about the lineage of the new WORM cards. This is what was returned:
"The new SanDisk SD WORM cards use proprietary SanDisk memory technology that allows us to achieve this archival length."
That doesn’t help my thesis one way or the other, but I’m sticking to it.
If you want more insight into the OTP anti-fuse memory, you can look at US patent application 10027466. Even a quick skim of this application should be enough to convince you of just how robust this type of memory is after writing to it.
It now appears that SanDisk has given up on the alchemy of converting OTP memory into a re-writable form with last week's announcement of the SD WORM card. I'm glad to see that SanDisk has finally decided to take advantage of one of the true merits of the Matrix 3D memory technology.
The engineers at Matrix Semiconductor created a stackable cross-point fusible memory that could be manufactured on mature or even trailing edge fab lines and still produce very dense packing of bits. The extreme regularity of the bit cell meant that the memory pitch could be much better than the standard pitches allowed in the design rules of the technology. On top of that (literally) the memory cells could be stacked layer upon layer for many times higher cell packing per square millimeter of silicon. The cost per bit was very low.
I had the chance to interview the Matrix CTO in the days before the acquisition. I was sold on both the talent and the technology they had developed. So it was not too surprising when they became an acquisition target for SanDisk.
Unfortunately, it seemed to become yet another case of a mature company where the decision makers are unable to see beyond the technology or lines of business that have been historically successful. SanDisk announced that the Matrix 3D memory was being transformed into a traditional re-writable form, and it appeared they were mired inside some deep wheel ruts cut by the NAND flash business. Or maybe they were just swallowing up a possible competitor.
Both re-writable flash and OTP memory are non-volatile. What distinguishes the OTP is just how non-volatile it is. That's what makes it attractive as a data archive. It is in no way unflattering to police departments to say that many professional as well as amateur photographers take the safety of their digital image files just as much if not more seriously than the justice system. That's why I think police archives are just a way of rolling out the technology.
It's great marketing to convince us that our own precious memories will be around for our grandchildren to enjoy if kept on the SanDisk SD WORM card. None of the usual enemies of data storage media like charge leakage or exposure to radiation or magnetic fields can change the memory state of the memory developed by Matrix Semiconductor. Alas, fire and flood are still the enemies of your family photo collection, but even a modest attempt to protect the digital film would keep those photos safer longer than old fashioned silver-halide film or paper prints.
But it didn’t take Japan’s national police force to convince me. Based on the Matrix 3D memory's potential for mass producing cheap digital film, the convenience factor was enough for me. Think about it. Take the pictures then upload them to your PC or wherever you like. Fill your SD WORM card and put it on the shelf. Now you have your pictures where you intend to view and use them, and they are already backed up on a dependable storage system. Back-up is built in automatically.
But then again, maybe I'm just another dinosaur that remembers buying analog film where we measured it by exposures or even by the foot. At one time, that concept was deeply enough ingrained that even the flash manufacturers (and most notably SanDisk themselves) believed they might market "digital film" as a consumable the same way that Kodak brought photography to the mass market.
Hopefully, SanDisk hasn't waited so long that the average consumer has realized the importance of data back-up and taken to other forms like cloud computing.

Apple iPhone Camera Improved

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:48:44 -0400

Tomorrow morning, lots of lucky folks will get their hands on the latest must-have hardware from Apple - iPhone 4. Many of those will want to check out the new camera hardware first since the latest incarnation of the iPhone includes a five megapixel (for stills) camera module that can shoot HD video as well. What they will immediately notice, however, is not the increase in megapixels from three to five, but the much improved responsiveness when snapping a picture.
I noticed this myself today but not because I got the new phone before anyone else. I actually noticed this improved camera app performance after I downloaded and installed iOS 4 on my iPhone 3GS. The new iPhone OS has been available since Monday, but I finally got around to it today. Usually I grab free stuff a bit faster,
I was just killing time waiting for my five and nine year old daughters to finish rehearsing, so I could shoot a video of their trampoline dance routine. The camera app on the new iOS 4 was so much faster than the previous version that I had to take quite a few pictures of my dog lazing on the deck before the girls were ready for video.
It was a big install package that wrested complete control of my iTunes while those nearly 400 MB were dumped onto the phone. Coincidentally, I had episode 200 of MacBreak Weekly playing where one of that podcast's regulars, Andy Ihnatko, pointed out that 80% of "the awesomeness of the iPhone 4 is available just in iOS 4." That was certainly evident with the camera app.
Having the MacBreak podcast take over my computer made it awfully difficult to read patents, but it did give me time to ponder the importance of software on Apple's various platforms. That's something I spent quite a bit of time thinking about while writing about the A4 apps processor for EE Times. The latest iPhone is built from some great hardware, not least of all the A4, but a great deal of the absolute performance of Apple computers, not just the general user experience or the slick eye candy of the screen layouts and icons, can be attributed to the software from the folks down in Cupertino.
iPhone 4 won’t be a lazy dog.

Apple A4, Displays and Life (battery, that is)

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:24:41 -0400

Since you may be looking for more Analysis of Apple’s A4 custom applications processor after reading a recent EE Times article, I thought I would provide a bit more of the thinking that was done in preparation for that. If you landed here randomly or just check this blog regularly (okay, so I know you both personally, and I could just pick up the phone), you might want to have a look at that article. Or you can check back to the publications page for a high resolution die photo coming soon. Or you could just skip this introductory nonsense and get on with reading this post.
I think some fellow bloggers joined Young Choi over at UBM in saying that differences in power consumption between apps processors are a drop in the bucket compared to what the display - especially the big one on the iPad - consumes. Young did a a very useful review of the trends in apps procs from the full line of Apple mobile devices. He ends his own EE Times article with a thought that is quite true:
“Until display technologies make big moves downward in power consumption the consumer experience of battery life may be driven as much or more by the LED drivers, opto-mechanical design of the back-lighting, display settings and wireless connectivity employed versus the CPU itself.”
Certainly, there is no avoiding burning a lot of battery power to light up the display, but it’s still interesting to think through the differences between pre-A4 platforms, and the two we know for sure have sockets for it.
Apple specifications claim similar device life for web surfing over WiFi - 10 hours for iPad and nine hours for iPhone 3GS. Factoring in the 10 percent lower life, a screen area increase for lighting of eight times the iPhone's 3.5 inch diagonal, and the six times bigger battery in the iPad, the chips in play for the surfing task are providing nearly 50% longer battery life. It's an oversimplification, but one could assume (especially if you are Apple PR) that much of the improvement comes from the A4 design compared to the processor used in the iPhone 3GS. Architecturally at least, there is no evidence that this big power saving would come from throwing away unnecessary circuit blocks from a generic off-the-shelf standard product. A few bloggers thought that the A4 would not support camera functionality since the iPad didn't, but I doubt you needed to wait for the the June 7 Keynote and the iPhone 4 announcement to realize that at least one A4 product platform would contain a camera.
With the iPhone 4 announcement at WWDC 2010 and official Apple specs now available, a better A4 to 3GS processor comparison is possible. Unfortunately for the custom chip side, this doesn't do much for the A4’s reputation as an energy miser. Apple's iPhone 4 video describes a much bigger battery than the 3GS that offers "up to 40% more talk time." However, the web surfing life connected by WiFi is listed at 10 hours for iPhone 4 versus nine for the 3GS. That leaves little room to conclude that the new A4 design or its 45nm Samsung process technology offer any power savings as it is configured for the iPhone. That is unless Apple has channeled the power saving into brightening its new Retina Display. Although the physical area is the same, the iPhone 4 team may have decided to increase the visual impact of the new screen by increasing the power supplied to its LED backlight. Once legally available versions of iPhone 4 are available, we will know for sure.

Semiconductor Sales Outlook Improving

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:23:12 -0400

After a few months of downward corrections, the latest Cowan LRA forecast and the WSTS numbers it is based on took on a more positive appearance recently. The latest numbers published by the WSTS are for actual April sales results, and these were made public on June 2. The first quarter of this year was a whopping 58.3% higher than last year.
Cowan's newest forecast for 2010 is the most bullish amongst the forecasters, but he is certainly not alone. Predictions range from 22.6 to 33.4 percent year-over-year improvement compared with 2009. You may conclude that these healthy growth numbers are due in large part to the near-disastrous 2009 since, in fact, they are. However, the mood appears very positive considering that each of the analysts listed by the GSA increased their latest forecasts. In addition to Cowan, that's ten major analyst firms and anyone providing updates for April or later this year sounding more positive than in their previous revision.
Overall, the Cowan model now predicts that 2010 semiconductor revenue will crack the $300B barrier, edging past by a couple billion. As noted above, Cowan expects revenue for 2010 to outpace 2009 by 33.4%. The current quarter is expected to hit $74.2B or 41.4% over Q2 2009. That's nothing like the first quarter but still an extremely strong number. There's nothing soft in the numbers. The SIA released it's newest prediction last week as it expects 2010 to grow by 28.2% to produce $290B of total revenue. Let's hope the weakening Euro and the government debt crises in many of its member states don't spoil these predictions.
More about Mike Cowan
Mike Cowan, the developer of the Cowan LRA Model for forecasting global S/C sales, is a 44-year semiconductor industry veteran. He has a 36-year history at IBM's Microelectronics Division in East Fishkill, N.Y., where he was involved in many facets of semiconductor development and manufacturing engineering, including both technical and management responsibilities.
During his last ten years at IBM, as a senior technical staff member, he was involved in strategy development and competitor/competitive analysis focused on the semiconductor industry, and had developed a number of top-down and bottom-up models to predict the dynamics of the semiconductor industry.
Following his retirement from IBM in 2002 he became an independent semiconductor industry analyst providing his monthly forecasts to The Semiconductor Reporter website from 2002 to 2006, to Future Horizons during 2007 and 2008, and presently to various websites reporting on the “comings and goings” of the industry including EE Times’ Silicon Strategies, weSRCH.com, and the semiconDr.com blog.
Cowan earned both BS and MS degrees in physics at Wayne State University in Michigan, and an MS in electrical engineering at Syracuse University in New York.
For more information regarding the model or the presented results, you may contact Mike Cowan directly at: mikedcowan(at)verizon.net.

iPhone 4

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 09:31:47 -0400

Despite being an event devoted to developers with cameras and media not officially allowed in, the iPhone 4 keynote bogged down with the hundreds of laptops and iPads in the room liveblogging the event. So it's quite interesting that the new iPhone 4 announced offers a few features that would help a journalist or blogger cover an event like the latest Apple keynote.
Although Steve Jobs presented only eight of the "more than a hundred" new features available on the iPhone 4, at least two of these have potential for bloggers or freelance journalists. First of all, the audio quality should drastically improve with the addition of a second microphone for active noise canceling. And there are lots of events with more excited and noisy people than even an Apple keynote and new hardware demo.
Beyond the audio, the new "FaceTime" video chat feature may offer an interesting angle on video interviews depending on access to the video stream on the receiving end.
The camera is better and can now record HD video. That's not the real story, though. For field reporters (be they for the family reunion or the Financial Times) the addition of convenient video editing software in iMovie enables on-site creation of seamless video clips that can be immediately uploaded to the web. That will be a welcome change for viewers of this content who often sit through the more than occasional shot of press conference ceiling and floor before seeing what they tuned in for.
It's not directly connected to the output of the journalist to be enjoyed by his or her readers, but there is another element of the iPhone 4 that should be mentioned. With competing platforms offering truly beautiful high resolution screens such as AMOLED, recent iPhone revisions have been widely criticized for not keeping up. The new "Retina Display" appears to change that. At 326 pixels per inch, the new iPhone 4 display will offer resolution rivaling good quality printed text in the same physical size as the current iPhone models.
That should help lots of potential iPhone 4 customers who might otherwise be on the fence, but what is the connection for the journalist community? Well, reading scores of complaints, demands and otherwise generally harassing emails from their editors should be, if nothing else, at least a little easier on their eyes. (The new iOS 4 also offers threaded viewing of emails which will also allow intrepid reporters to keep those back-and-forths with the boss from taking up too much inbox space.)