Samsung and Toshiba sign flash deal
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Samsung and Toshiba have signed a cross licence agreement under which they will produce, market and sell each other’s flash memory devices.
Under terms of the agreement, Samsung will license product specifications of its integrated OneNAND and Flex-OneNAND ‘fusion’ memory chips to Toshiba, while Toshiba will license product specifications of its single package LBA-NAND and mobileLBA-NAND flash chips to Samsung. Both companies will develop and market products that are compatible with the respective original source technology. Samsung and Toshiba each plan to release products next year, based on the respectively licensed product specifications.
Masaki Momodomi, flash memory technology executive for Toshiba’s Semiconductor company, said: “Signing this agreement will provide a major boost for market development and we believe it will trigger substantial new growth. It will allow our customers more options – both in terms of high performance technologies and suppliers.”
Yun-Ho Choi, senior vice president of Samsung’s flash team, added: “The performance specs and design in features of the NAND flash memories to which the agreement applies can greatly improve design options for CE application designers, while reducing development costs. Samsung will place additional priority on meeting the anticipated growth in demand for high performance NAND flash in mobile and other consumer applications through the provisioning of more diverse NAND solutions and peripheral interfaces.”
