Best known as a manufacturer of dynamic RAM for computers, Infineon said it has begun production of TwinFlash, its first flash memory chip, at one of its plants in Dresden, Germany.
Flash -- memory chips that can retain data when their power supply is switched off -- is used widely in cellular phones and other electronic devices. However, the variety being manufactured by Infineon, known as NAND, is more popular for handhelds, such as music players, memory cards for cameras and key-ring storage devices that connect to a PC via a Universal Serial Bus port -- the interface between a computer and add-on devices.
NAND stands for "N and," a reference to how data is retrieved. The chips can hold far more data than NOR (N or) chips and are cheaper at comparable densities. NOR, used most often to store data in cell phones and set top boxes, is less prone to data corruption.
Infineon is likely eyeing the successes of other dynamic random access memory (DRAM) makers, such as Samsung, in the flash market. For its part, Samsung, whose primary flash product is also NAND, became the top flash maker during the third quarter of 2003, thanks to a 50 percent year-over-year jump sales, according to research firm iSuppli.
Indeed, Infineon indicated that the size of the market and the potential growth rates of flash products, as well as the relative ease of producing flash chips were what appealed to the company.
Citing figures from research firm Gartner, Infineon pegged the flash market at $4.4bn (£2.42bn) in 2004 and said that it is expected to be the fastest-growing segment of the overall memory market in the near future.
The company's TwinFlash chips, derived from a joint venture with Israeli company Saifun Semiconductors, can be produced using the same equipment as its DRAM, thus giving its manufacturing plans some flexibility, Infineon said.
"Infineon has expanded its memory product portfolio significantly by including flash and can now allocate its memory production capacities flexibly between DRAM and flash," Harald Eggers, chief executive of Infineon's Memory Products Business Group, said in a statement.
"The TwinFlash technology allows us to produce flash chips on the existing equipment used for DRAM manufacturing and consequently to enter a new market with basically no investment in manufacturing equipment," Eggers said.
Infineon's first TwinFlash chip offers a density of 512 megabits; however, the company says it will increase the density of its flash chips to 2 gigabits, over time.
Though the company is starting off slowly, its goals are lofty. Infineon aims to become one of the top three players in NAND flash chips by 2007, the company said.
But competition will be stiff. Aside from Samsung, the chipmaker will face competition from Toshiba, the second-largest NAND player, as well as from NOR flash makers, such as Advanced Micro Devices' and Fujitsu's Spansion joint venture, and Intel.
