Creating Electronics Innovation By Licensing IP and Technology

Posted on June 20, 2011 by John Kispert

In my journeys around the world, meeting with the leading providers of the most advanced electronics, I walk away inspired and challenged to find ways we can enable more innovation in their markets. I challenge all of my Spansion colleagues on how we can be a strategic partner to help customers innovate more efficiently and faster – to make a difference in the electronics that touch all of our lives at home, at work, on the go.

Innovation may mean different things to different people – the coolest gadget, solving new design challenges, more jobs, industry recognition and awards. For me, it means leveraging our extensive IP portfolio of more than 2,000 patents on everything from technology, know-how, process methodology and design expertise, to create new markets and new classes of products that solve our customers’ needs and substantially enhance the lives of consumers.

Today we reached a significant milestone in Spansion’s history. After two and half years of litigation, we reached an agreement with Samsung to resolve our differences and settle all ongoing patents. I am extremely proud of our engineers who have worked diligently over the years on developing Spansion’s patent portfolio. Protecting and monetizing our IP is core to Spansion’s growth strategy.

This agreement today validates the strength of our IP portfolio and demonstrates our employees’ determination and smart innovation – two important values of Spansion. We have a strong foundation to build from and we plan to expand our licensing business for both our IP and technology.

Spansion is on a path to enable innovation in next generation electronics. I look forward to innovating with our customers and the industry.

Spansion’s Fab-Lite Manufacturing Strategy Gains More Weight

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Joe Rauschmayer

Spansion put more weight behind its Fab-Lite manufacturing strategy by expanding our relationship with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry. We recently announced that we have extended our current foundry arrangement to expand the 65nm capacity and include the manufacture of Spansion’s 45nm NOR Flash memory.

So why Fab-Lite?

Spansion operates a model that utilizes efficient, low-cost internal manufacturing, augmented with production capacity at third party companies for legacy technology production, cost effective 300mm capacity expansion and advanced technology production capability. Our Austin, TX facility is the core of this flexible manufacturing strategy. We built our foundry network around the capabilities of the Austin fab to include support for legacy and advanced processing nodes. FSET, in Aizu Wakamatsu is our partner for technologies older than 110nm and enables the product longevity Spansion customers require. Texas Instruments, also in Aizu Wakamatsu, provides additional 110nm capacity that is shared with our Austin facility. For more advanced nodes, SMIC provides 65nm (as well as Austin) and now 45nm NOR Flash production.

We can tune our product mix in Austin and leverage our network of foundry partners as needed to fulfill customer demand. Yet, Spansion still maintains our internal manufacturing excellence, providing confidence that our new innovations will seamlessly transition from their prototype stage to full production.

Balancing Demands

Fab-Lite also helps Spansion continually balance the competing demands for its manufacturing facilities. Due to the nature of the customer requirements in the embedded systems marketplace, Spansion product lines have a longer lifespan than you might find from other suppliers.

Spansion also announced that we met our commitment to move into production our 1 Gb and 512 Mb versions of the Spansion GL-S NOR Flash memory. Meeting this commitment, along with our flexible fab strategy allows Spansion to deliver our lastest innovations in a timely manner, meeting our customers embedded system requirements.

Through our Fab-Lite manufacturing strategy, we can effectively satisfy the customer demand for the latest innovations, with the right quality, in production volumes. This approach to manufacturing gives Spansion the capacity and capabilities it needs for the future with a structure that ensures a continual cost reduction path for our customers.

NVM Conference Looks at the Future of Flash

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Richard Fastow

This year’s non-volatile memory (NVM) memory conference from Web-Feet Research and Westwood Marketing provided attendees a look into many possible futures for Flash memory technology. In my presentation with Alan Niebel of Web-Feet, I reviewed existing memories and discussed their suitability as replacements to today’s NAND Flash memory technology.

As an industry, we always face challenges in scaling technology to smaller geometries but it is largely believed that traditional floating-gate NAND technology is running out of steam. By 2012 I expect current NAND technologies to be on life support. Heavy error code correction will be needed in the system to make solutions viable in the 2x/1x nodes. By 2014 we will likely see the end of floating-gate scaling and the transition to a charge trapping NAND technology to overcome these barriers and carry NAND products on through 2020.

But what’s next for Flash memory and when will a disruptive technology ramp up?

Memory technology adoption takes time. Evolutionary applications, those that are compatible with today’s industry-standard solutions and are relatively form, fit and function compliant, generally take up five to ten years from research to mainstream acceptance (see MirrorBit® technology case study graphic below). Disruptive applications, ones where you introduce new paradigms and orders of magnitude improvements over today’s solutions, will take anywhere from 10 to 20 years to ramp. In the latter case, an entire industry needs change. We need complimentary silicon solutions, software and customer hardware architectures before we will see the start of commercial production.

MirrorBit Charge-Trapping Technology Adoption

Many contending disruptive technologies have been alive in labs since the 60s and 70s and we are still waiting for what’s next. Furthest along is PRAM/Phase-change memory. Other options in varying stages of manufacturing trial are Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAm/ReRAM), Programmable Metallization Cell (PMC) / Conductive Bridging RAM (CBRAM), and Unity Semiconductor’s Memory Cell CMOx. The jury is still out on all of these memories. Can they be commercially viable for cost-efficient, volume production? Will they exceed the benefits of today’s technology by a degree large enough to justify customer and industry investment in rearchitecting? Only time will tell.

My colleagues and I will share more thoughts and insights over the coming the months on a host of issues related to industry adoption and technology advancements. Share your thoughts, lets us know where you think the industry is headed.