Micron's XTRMFlash(TM) Memory Breaks Through NOR Flash Speed Limits to Power Next-Gen, Instant-On Applications

Winbond Electronics First to Sign License Agreement to Develop XTRMFlash-Compatible Memory Devices

BOISE, Idaho, Oct. 20, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), today announced XTRMFlash(TM) memory, a faster NOR flash solution designed to revolutionize the way the electronics industry develops systems to meet the demand for "instant-on" performance and fast system responsiveness in automotive, industrial and consumer applications.

Utilizing its new, low pin count interface that uses as little as 11 active signals, Micron's XTRMFlash memory outperforms other industry NOR Flash while also significantly reducing pin counts by as much as 75 percent from those found in Parallel NOR flash available in the market today. XTRMFlash memory provides system designers the ideal and fastest possible direct code execution NOR flash memory solution available to enable high-performance, yet small form-factor designs.

"Micron is committed to continued innovation in NOR flash memory," said Richard De Caro, director of NOR Flash for Micron's Embedded Business Unit. "We worked closely with our ecosystem partners and customers to understand their next-generation requirements for high-performance memory, and we have developed XTRMFlash memory as a result. XTRMFlash memory and the XTRMFlash interface have the potential to dramatically change the paradigm of the existing memory landscape by enabling a new category of high-performance and low pin count memory devices that can also extend beyond NOR Flash."

Micron fully intends for XTRMFlash memory and the interface to become widely adopted open standards, and as a testament to that effort and the XTRMFlash memory value proposition, flash memory provider Winbond Electronics has signed a license agreement to develop XTRMFlash-compatible solutions.

"Winbond is excited to join Micron with development of XTRMFlash-compatible solutions," stated Syed S. Hussain, director Flash Memory Marketing for Winbond Electronics Corporation America. "With Winbond providing compatible XTRMFlash solutions, customers will have the confidence and peace-of-mind to design-in XTRMFlash and support the new interface."

Performance that matters

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) NOR flash is used in a wide array of applications for boot code, program code, and data storage. Micron recognized the need for XTRMFlash memory to maintain backward compatibility to SPI NOR flash so that customers can upgrade their designs with relative ease. However, with random access times as fast as 83 nanoseconds (ns) and sequential byte reads as fast as 2.5ns, XTRMFlash memory offers dramatically better performance compared to traditional SPI and Quad-SPI NOR flash. Sustained read throughputs of 400 megabytes per second (MB/s) enables an entire 1-gigabit (Gb) XTRMFlash device to be read in a mere 0.3 seconds. With XTRMFlash memory's direct execute-in-place (XIP) operation and low pin count interface, valuable board space can be saved and the need for code shadowing can be eliminated.