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94-586: Kingston Technology Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells and supports flash memory products, other computer -related memory products, as well as the HyperX gaming division (now owned by HP ). Headquartered in Fountain Valley, California , United States , Kingston Technology employs more than 3,000 employees worldwide as of Q1 2016. The company has manufacturing and logistics facilities in

188-640: A 1024   GB flash chip, with eight stacked 96-layer V-NAND chips and with QLC technology. Flash memory stores information in an array of memory cells made from floating-gate transistors . In single-level cell (SLC) devices, each cell stores only one bit of information. Multi-level cell (MLC) devices, including triple-level cell (TLC) devices, can store more than one bit per cell. The floating gate may be conductive (typically polysilicon in most kinds of flash memory) or non-conductive (as in SONOS flash memory). In flash memory, each memory cell resembles

282-489: A 16   GB flash memory chip that was manufactured with 24 stacked NAND flash chips using a wafer bonding process. Toshiba also used an eight-layer 3D IC for their 32   GB THGBM flash chip in 2008. In 2010, Toshiba used a 16-layer 3D IC for their 128   GB THGBM2 flash chip, which was manufactured with 16 stacked 8   GB chips. In the 2010s, 3D ICs came into widespread commercial use for NAND flash memory in mobile devices . In 2016, Micron and Intel introduced

376-433: A 64   MB NOR flash memory chip. In 2009, Toshiba and SanDisk introduced NAND flash chips with QLC technology storing 4 bits per cell and holding a capacity of 64   Gbit. Samsung Electronics introduced triple-level cell (TLC) technology storing 3-bits per cell, and began mass-producing NAND chips with TLC technology in 2010. Charge trap flash (CTF) technology replaces the polysilicon floating gate, which

470-548: A certain number of faults (NOR flash, as is used for a BIOS  ROM, is expected to be fault-free). Manufacturers try to maximize the amount of usable storage by shrinking the size of the transistors or cells, however the industry can avoid this and achieve higher storage densities per die by using 3D NAND, which stacks cells on top of each other. NAND flash cells are read by analysing their response to various voltages. NAND flash uses tunnel injection for writing and tunnel release for erasing. NAND flash memory forms

564-517: A charge-trapping mechanism for NOR flash memory cells. CTF was later commercialized by AMD and Fujitsu in 2002. 3D V-NAND (vertical NAND) technology stacks NAND flash memory cells vertically within a chip using 3D charge trap flash (CTP) technology. 3D V-NAND technology was first announced by Toshiba in 2007, and the first device, with 24 layers, was first commercialized by Samsung Electronics in 2013. 3D integrated circuit (3D IC) technology stacks integrated circuit (IC) chips vertically into

658-466: A different architecture, relying on a serial access approach. This makes NAND suitable for high-density data storage but less efficient for random access tasks. NAND flash is often employed in scenarios where cost-effective, high-capacity storage is crucial, such as in USB drives, memory cards, and solid-state drives ( SSDs ). The primary differentiator lies in their use cases and internal structures. NOR flash

752-501: A fast read access time but it is not as fast as static RAM or ROM. In portable devices, it is preferred to use flash memory because of its mechanical shock resistance since mechanical drives are more prone to mechanical damage. Because erase cycles are slow, the large block sizes used in flash memory erasing give it a significant speed advantage over non-flash EEPROM when writing large amounts of data. As of 2019, flash memory costs greatly less than byte-programmable EEPROM and had become

846-401: A lower voltage. Forbes lists Kingston as No. 69 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." In 2015, IHS ranks Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the 12th consecutive year. In January, HyperX reclaimed the top DDR4 overclocking mark in the world at 4351 MHz. HyperX Launches High-Performance PCIe SSD with

940-458: A manufacturing facility and offices in Dublin, Ireland . The company also expanded its American manufacturing capacity by purchasing PC-OEM manufacturing buildings in Fountain Valley, California . Kingston also introduced ValueRAM, which was a high-quality, low-cost memory designed for system integrators to use in white box systems. In 1999, Kingston launched Advanced Validation Labs, Inc. (AVL),

1034-425: A more typical 10,000 or 100,000 erase cycles, up to 1,000,000 erase cycles. NOR-based flash was the basis of early flash-based removable media; CompactFlash was originally based on it, though later cards moved to less expensive NAND flash. NAND flash has reduced erase and write times, and requires less chip area per cell, thus allowing greater storage density and lower cost per bit than NOR flash. However,

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1128-483: A new supply chain management model to its memory manufacturing process. Payton Technology Inc. was established to help support this new model. Forbes listed Kingston as number 141 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S," with revenues of $ 1.5 billion for 1999. In March 2001, Kingston announced the formation of the Consumer Markets Division (CMD), a new division focusing on

1222-518: A planar charge trap cell into a cylindrical form. As of 2020, 3D NAND flash memories by Micron and Intel instead use floating gates, however, Micron 128 layer and above 3D NAND memories use a conventional charge trap structure, due to the dissolution of the partnership between Micron and Intel. Charge trap 3D NAND flash is thinner than floating gate 3D NAND. In floating gate 3D NAND, the memory cells are completely separated from one another, whereas in charge trap 3D NAND, vertical groups of memory cells share

1316-558: A result of the acquisition, averaging $ 130,000 for each of the company's 550 workers. Kingston announced a 49% increase in unit sales for its memory module products in calendar year 1996 over calendar year 1995. In 1996, Kingston opened its European headquarters in London, United Kingdom. In January 1997, Kingston opened a manufacturing facility/office in Taiwan , a sales office in Japan, and

1410-421: A separate die inside the package. The origins of flash memory can be traced back to the development of the floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS) , also known as the floating-gate transistor. The original MOSFET was invented at Bell Labs between 1955 and 1960, after Frosch and Derick discovered surface passivation and used their discovery to create the first planar transistors. Dawon Kahng went on to develop

1504-489: A single 3D IC chip package. Toshiba introduced 3D IC technology to NAND flash memory in April 2007, when they debuted a 16   GB eMMC compliant (product number THGAM0G7D8DBAI6, often abbreviated THGAM on consumer websites) embedded NAND flash memory chip, which was manufactured with eight stacked 2   GB NAND flash chips. In September 2007, Hynix Semiconductor (now SK Hynix ) introduced 24-layer 3D IC technology, with

1598-424: A single memory product. A single-level NOR flash cell in its default state is logically equivalent to a binary "1" value, because current will flow through the channel under application of an appropriate voltage to the control gate, so that the bitline voltage is pulled down. A NOR flash cell can be programmed, or set to a binary "0" value, by the following procedure: To erase a NOR flash cell (resetting it to

1692-409: A single supply voltage and produce the high voltages that are required using on-chip charge pumps . Over half the energy used by a 1.8 V-NAND flash chip is lost in the charge pump itself. Since boost converters are inherently more efficient than charge pumps, researchers developing low-power SSDs have proposed returning to the dual Vcc/Vpp supply voltages used on all early flash chips, driving

1786-451: A sister company that provides memory validation services. Kingston began manufacturing removable disk drive storage products in 1989 in their Kingston Storage Products Division. By 2000, it was decided to spin off the product line and become a sister company, StorCase Technology, Inc. StorCase ceased operations in 2006 after selling the designs and rights to manufacture its products to competitor CRU-DataPort. In June 2000, Kingston announced

1880-488: A standard metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) except that the transistor has two gates instead of one. The cells can be seen as an electrical switch in which current flows between two terminals (source and drain) and is controlled by a floating gate (FG) and a control gate (CG). The CG is similar to the gate in other MOS transistors, but below this, there is the FG insulated all around by an oxide layer. The FG

1974-482: A technology known as CMOS Under the Array/CMOS Under Array (CUA), Core over Periphery (COP), Periphery Under Cell (PUA), or Xtacking, in which the control circuitry for the flash memory is placed under or above the flash memory cell array. This has allowed for an increase in the number of planes or sections a flash memory chip has, increasing from 2 planes to 4, without increasing the area dedicated to

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2068-843: A time. NAND flash also uses floating-gate transistors , but they are connected in a way that resembles a NAND gate : several transistors are connected in series, and the bit line is pulled low only if all the word lines are pulled high (above the transistors' V T ). These groups are then connected via some additional transistors to a NOR-style bit line array in the same way that single transistors are linked in NOR ;flash. Compared to NOR flash, replacing single transistors with serial-linked groups adds an extra level of addressing. Whereas NOR flash might address memory by page then word, NAND flash might address it by page, word and bit. Bit-level addressing suits bit-serial applications (such as hard disk emulation), which access only one bit at

2162-453: A time. Execute-in-place applications, on the other hand, require every bit in a word to be accessed simultaneously. This requires word-level addressing. In any case, both bit and word addressing modes are possible with either NOR or NAND flash. To read data, first the desired group is selected (in the same way that a single transistor is selected from a NOR array). Next, most of the word lines are pulled up above V T2 , while one of them

2256-425: A total of $ 1.8 billion. In November of the same year, Kingston and Toshiba co-marketed memory upgrades for Toshiba PCs - the first time that a PC OEM and a memory manufacturer had teamed up to create a co-branded module. In 1999, Tu and Sun eventually bought back the 80 percent of Kingston owned by Softbank for $ 450 million. On December 14, 1996, John Tu and David Sun allocated $ 71.5 million for employee bonuses as

2350-506: A type of flash memory with a charge trap method. In 1998, Boaz Eitan of Saifun Semiconductors (later acquired by Spansion ) patented a flash memory technology named NROM that took advantage of a charge trapping layer to replace the conventional floating gate used in conventional flash memory designs. In 2000, an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) research team led by Richard M. Fastow, Egyptian engineer Khaled Z. Ahmed and Jordanian engineer Sameer Haddad (who later joined Spansion) demonstrated

2444-450: A variation, the floating-gate MOSFET, with Taiwanese-American engineer Simon Min Sze at Bell Labs in 1967. They proposed that it could be used as floating-gate memory cells for storing a form of programmable read-only memory ( PROM ) that is both non-volatile and re-programmable. Early types of floating-gate memory included EPROM (erasable PROM) and EEPROM (electrically erasable PROM) in

2538-515: Is also often used to store configuration data in digital products, a task previously made possible by EEPROM or battery-powered static RAM . A key disadvantage of flash memory is that it can endure only a relatively small number of write cycles in a specific block. NOR flash is known for its direct random access capabilities, making it apt for executing code directly. Its architecture allows for individual byte access, facilitating faster read speeds compared to NAND flash. NAND flash memory operates with

2632-444: Is an electrically insulating tunnel oxide layer between the floating gate and the silicon, so the gate "floats" above the silicon. The oxide keeps the electrons confined to the floating gate. Degradation or wear (and the limited endurance of floating gate Flash memory) occurs due to the extremely high electric field (10 million volts per centimeter) experienced by the oxide. Such high voltage densities can break atomic bonds over time in

2726-525: Is interposed between the CG and the MOSFET channel. Because the FG is electrically isolated by its insulating layer, electrons placed on it are trapped. When the FG is charged with electrons, this charge screens the electric field from the CG, thus, increasing the threshold voltage (V T ) of the cell. This means that the V T of the cell can be changed between the uncharged FG threshold voltage (V T1 ) and

2820-484: Is optimal for applications requiring quick access to individual bytes, like in embedded systems for program execution. NAND flash, on the other hand, shines in scenarios demanding cost-effective, high-capacity storage with sequential data access. Flash memory is used in computers , PDAs , digital audio players , digital cameras , mobile phones , synthesizers , video games , scientific instrumentation , industrial robotics , and medical electronics . Flash memory has

2914-636: Is programmed in blocks while EEPROM is programmed in bytes. According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by Masuoka's colleague, Shōji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of the memory contents reminded him of the flash of a camera . Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention of NOR flash in 1984, and then NAND flash at the IEEE 1987 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco. Toshiba commercially launched NAND flash memory in 1987. Intel Corporation introduced

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3008-422: Is pulled up to V I . The series group will conduct (and pull the bit line low) if the selected bit has not been programmed. Despite the additional transistors, the reduction in ground wires and bit lines allows a denser layout and greater storage capacity per chip. (The ground wires and bit lines are actually much wider than the lines in the diagrams.) In addition, NAND flash is typically permitted to contain

3102-484: Is sandwiched between a blocking gate oxide above and a tunneling oxide below it, with an electrically insulating silicon nitride layer; the silicon nitride layer traps electrons. In theory, CTF is less prone to electron leakage, providing improved data retention. Because CTF replaces the polysilicon with an electrically insulating nitride, it allows for smaller cells and higher endurance (lower degradation or wear). However, electrons can become trapped and accumulate in

3196-513: Is thus highly suitable for use in mass-storage devices, such as memory cards and solid-state drives (SSD). For example, SSDs store data using multiple NAND flash memory chips. The first NAND-based removable memory card format was SmartMedia , released in 1995. Many others followed, including MultiMediaCard , Secure Digital , Memory Stick , and xD-Picture Card . A new generation of memory card formats, including RS-MMC , miniSD and microSD , feature extremely small form factors. For example,

3290-451: Is used by over 20% of professional gamers. Flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash , are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates . Both use the same cell design, consisting of floating-gate MOSFETs . They differ at

3384-502: The "1" state), a large voltage of the opposite polarity is applied between the CG and source terminal, pulling the electrons off the FG through Fowler–Nordheim tunneling (FN tunneling). This is known as Negative gate source source erase. Newer NOR memories can erase using negative gate channel erase, which biases the wordline on a NOR memory cell block and the P-well of the memory cell block to allow FN tunneling to be carried out, erasing

3478-604: The "Diverse Supplier Award for Best Overall Performance" from Dell . It was also honored for "Excellence in Fairness" by the Great Place to Work Institute. The company also appeared on Fortune ' s list of "100 Best Companies to Work For" for five consecutive years (1998–2002). In 2001, it was listed by IndustryWeek as a "Top 5 Global Manufacturing Company". Forbes ranks Kingston as number 51 on its list of America's Largest Private Companies. The HyperX line of products

3572-712: The 1970s. However, early floating-gate memory required engineers to build a memory cell for each bit of data, which proved to be cumbersome, slow, and expensive, restricting floating-gate memory to niche applications in the 1970s, such as military equipment and the earliest experimental mobile phones . Modern EEPROM based on Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling to erase data was invented by Bernward and patented by Siemens in 1974. And further developed between 1976 and 1978 by Eliyahou Harari at Hughes Aircraft Company and George Perlegos and others at Intel. This led to Masuoka's invention of flash memory at Toshiba in 1980. The improvement between EEPROM and flash being that flash

3666-733: The AMD Athlon 64 and Opteron launches. Kingston reported revenues of $ 2.4B for 2004. In May, Kingston launched a line of validated ValueRam modules for Intel-based servers. The company was later granted a U.S. patent on dynamic burn-in tester for server memory. They also announced a $ 26M investment in Tera Probe, the newest and largest wafer testing company in the world. They also opened the world's largest memory module manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. In 2006, Kingston reported revenues of $ 3.0B for 2005. In March, Kingston introduced

3760-438: The FG is charged. The binary value of the cell is sensed by determining whether there is current flowing through the transistor when V I is asserted on the CG. In a multi-level cell device, which stores more than one bit per cell, the amount of current flow is sensed (rather than simply its presence or absence), in order to determine more precisely the level of charge on the FG. Floating gate MOSFETs are so named because there

3854-540: The I/O interface of NAND flash does not provide a random-access external address bus. Rather, data must be read on a block-wise basis, with typical block sizes of hundreds to thousands of bits. This makes NAND flash unsuitable as a drop-in replacement for program ROM, since most microprocessors and microcontrollers require byte-level random access. In this regard, NAND flash is similar to other secondary data storage devices , such as hard disks and optical media , and

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3948-471: The Japanese government and banks during the financial crisis in 2009. On April 3, 2010, Elpida Memory sold ¥18.5billion worth of shares to Kingston Technology On April 22, 2010, Elpida announced it had developed the world's first four-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM. Based on a 40 nm process, this DRAM was said to use about thirty percent less power compared to two 40 nm process two-gigabit DDR3 SDRAMs. It

4042-748: The Japanese government. In October 2023, the government once again approved a $ 1.3 billion subsidy for the Hiroshima chip factory. Micron has two design centers, one manufacturing plant/technology development site, and two sales offices in Japan: Technology Development Micron Japan, Ltd. (MJP) The Hiroshima Plant is key to Micron's efforts to develop low-power DRAM products essential to smartphones and other mobile devices. Once these products achieve yield and performance targets (optimal cost structure, quality and lower end-to-end product cycle time) in Hiroshima,

4136-568: The U.S". Inc. ranked Kingston as the No. 1 Fastest Growing Private Company By Revenue. In 2008, Kingston reported revenues of $ 4.5B for 2007. In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies" ranked Kingston No. 2 in both Gross Dollars of Growth and Overall Revenue. Forbes lists Kingston as number 79 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." In 2009, Kingston reported revenues of $ 4.0B for 2008. Volume increased 41% in memory units shipped from 2007. iSuppli ranked Kingston as

4230-511: The U.S." In 2011, Kingston reported revenues of $ 6.5B for 2010. iSuppli ranked Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market, with 46% market share. Kingston also launched the Wi-Drive line of wireless storage products. Forbes ranked Kingston as the 51st largest private company in the US, up from No. 77. Inc. ranked Kingston No. 4 by revenue in

4324-574: The United States Department of Justice began a probe into the activities of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) manufacturers. US computer makers, including Dell and Gateway, claimed that inflated DRAM pricing was causing lost profits and hindering their effectiveness in the marketplace. To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy including Hynix , Infineon , Micron Technology , Samsung , and Elpida. Micron Technology

4418-803: The United States, United Kingdom , Ireland , Taiwan , and China . It is the largest independent producer of DRAM memory modules, owning approximately 68% of the third-party worldwide DRAM module market share in 2017, according to DRAMeXchange. In 2018 the company generated $ 7.5 billion in revenue and made No. 53 on the Forbes Lists of "America's Largest Private Companies 2019." Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs. Kingston Technology

4512-466: The cell block. Older memories used source erase, in which a high voltage was applied to the source and then electrons from the FG were moved to the source. Modern NOR flash memory chips are divided into erase segments (often called blocks or sectors). The erase operation can be performed only on a block-wise basis; all the cells in an erase segment must be erased together. Programming of NOR cells, however, generally can be performed one byte or word at

4606-502: The cell by increasing the MOSFET's threshold voltage. This, in turn, changes the drain-source current that flows through the transistor for a given gate voltage, which is ultimately used to encode a binary value. The Fowler-Nordheim tunneling effect is reversible, so electrons can be added to or removed from the floating gate, processes traditionally known as writing and erasing. Despite the need for relatively high programming and erasing voltages, virtually all flash chips today require only

4700-402: The cells are logically set to 1. Data can only be programmed in one pass to a page in a block that was erased. The programming process is set one or more cells from 1 to 0. Any cells that have been set to 0 by programming can only be reset to 1 by erasing the entire block. This means that before new data can be programmed into a page that already contains data, the current contents of the page plus

4794-712: The circuit level depending on whether the state of the bit line or word lines is pulled high or low: in NAND flash, the relationship between the bit line and the word lines resembles a NAND gate; in NOR flash, it resembles a NOR gate. Flash memory, a type of floating-gate memory, was invented by Fujio Masuoka at Toshiba in 1980 and is based on EEPROM technology. Toshiba began marketing flash memory in 1987. EPROMs had to be erased completely before they could be rewritten. NAND flash memory, however, may be erased, written, and read in blocks (or pages), which generally are much smaller than

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4888-560: The company joined the "Billion-Dollar Club". After the company's 1995 sales exceeded $ 1.3 billion, ads ran thanking the employees ("Thanks a Billion!") with each individual employee-name in The Wall Street Journal , The Orange County Register and The Los Angeles Times . Ads also appeared in trade publications and The Wall Street Journal thanking the company's suppliers and distributors. On August 15, 1996 SoftBank Corporation of Japan acquired 80 percent of Kingston for

4982-536: The company's bankruptcy was Japan's largest since Japan Airlines bankrupted in January 2010. The company suffered from both strong yen and a sharp drop of DRAM prices as a result of stagnant demand of personal computers and disruption of computer production caused by flooding of HDD factories in Thailand. DRAM prices plunged to a record low in 2011 as the price of the benchmark DDR3 2-gigabit DRAM declined 85%. Elpida

5076-584: The control or periphery circuitry. This increases the number of IO operations per flash chip or die, but it also introduces challenges when building capacitors for charge pumps used to write to the flash memory. Some flash dies have as many as 6 planes. As of August 2017, microSD cards with a capacity up to 400 GB (400 billion bytes) are available. The same year, Samsung combined 3D IC chip stacking with its 3D V-NAND and TLC technologies to manufacture its 512   GB KLUFG8R1EM flash memory chip with eight stacked 64-layer V-NAND chips. In 2019, Samsung produced

5170-404: The core of the removable USB storage devices known as USB flash drives , as well as most memory card formats and solid-state drives available today. The hierarchical structure of NAND flash starts at a cell level which establishes strings, then pages, blocks, planes and ultimately a die. A string is a series of connected NAND cells in which the source of one cell is connected to the drain of

5264-576: The dominant memory type wherever a system required a significant amount of non-volatile solid-state storage . EEPROMs, however, are still used in applications that require only small amounts of storage, e.g. in SPD implementations on computer memory modules. Flash memory packages can use die stacking with through-silicon vias and several dozen layers of 3D TLC NAND cells (per die) simultaneously to achieve capacities of up to 1 tebibyte per package using 16 stacked dies and an integrated flash controller as

5358-575: The entire device. NOR flash memory allows a single machine word to be written – to an erased location – or read independently. A flash memory device typically consists of one or more flash memory chips (each holding many flash memory cells), along with a separate flash memory controller chip. The NAND type is found mainly in memory cards , USB flash drives , solid-state drives (those produced since 2009), feature phones , smartphones , and similar products, for general storage and transfer of data. NAND or NOR flash memory

5452-556: The fastest-growing privately held company in America. The company expanded into networking and storage product lines, and introduced DataTraveler and DataPak portable products. In September 1994, Kingston became ISO 9000 certified on its first assessment attempt. In 1995, Kingston opened a branch office in Munich, Germany to provide technical support and marketing capabilities for its European distributors and customers. In October 1995,

5546-559: The first Windows to Go USB drive. Forbes lists Kingston as No. 48 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." Gartner Research ranked Kingston No. 1 USB manufacturer in the world. In 2013, Kingston ships its fastest, world's largest-capacity USB 3.0 Flash Drive with DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0, available up to 1 TB. Kingston launches the MobileLite Wireless reader line of storage products for smartphones and tablets. iSuppli ranks Kingston as

5640-497: The first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988. NOR-based flash has long erase and write times, but provides full address and data buses , allowing random access to any memory location . This makes it a suitable replacement for older read-only memory (ROM) chips, which are used to store program code that rarely needs to be updated, such as a computer's BIOS or the firmware of set-top boxes . Its endurance may be from as little as 100 erase cycles for an on-chip flash memory, to

5734-472: The first fully secure 100% privacy USB drive with 128-bit hardware encryption, and later with 256-bit hardware encryption. The company also launched Fully Buffered Dimms ( FBDIMMs ), which broke the 16 GB barrier. The company entered the portable media market with KPEX (Kingston Portable Entertainment eXperience). In 2007, Kingston reported revenues of $ 3.7B for 2006. Forbes listed Kingston as No. 83 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in

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5828-462: The flash storage device (such as SSD ), the data actually written to the flash memory may be 0011 1100. Vertical NAND (V-NAND) or 3D NAND memory stacks memory cells vertically and uses a charge trap flash architecture. The vertical layers allow larger areal bit densities without requiring smaller individual cells. It is also sold under the trademark BiCS Flash , which is a trademark of Kioxia Corporation (formerly Toshiba Memory Corporation). 3D NAND

5922-418: The floating gate. This is why data retention goes down and the risk of data loss increases with increasing degradation. The silicon oxide in a cell degrades with every erase operation. The degradation increases the amount of negative charge in the cell over time due to trapped electrons in the oxide and negates some of the control gate voltage, this over time also makes erasing the cell slower, so to maintain

6016-435: The high Vpp voltage for all flash chips in an SSD with a single shared external boost converter. In spacecraft and other high-radiation environments, the on-chip charge pump is the first part of the flash chip to fail, although flash memories will continue to work – in read-only mode – at much higher radiation levels. In NOR flash, each cell has one end connected directly to ground, and

6110-415: The higher charged FG threshold voltage (V T2 ) by changing the FG charge. In order to read a value from the cell, an intermediate voltage (V I ) between V T1 and V T2 is applied to the CG. If the channel conducts at V I , the FG must be uncharged (if it were charged, there would not be conduction because V I is less than V T2 ). If the channel does not conduct at the V I , it indicates that

6204-414: The highest-end SSD with the fastest speeds in the HyperX lineup. HyperX released the enhanced Cloud II headset with USB sound card audio control box and virtual 7.1 Surround Sound. HyperX creates the world's fastest DDR4 128GB memory kit running at an astoundingly fast 3000 MHz with HyperX Predator modules with ultra-tight timings. Gartner ranks Kingston as the No. 2 aftermarket PC SSD manufacturer in

6298-708: The memory and storage products, which it has rebranded as Kingston FURY. iSuppli (IHS) has ranked Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for 12 consecutive years, the most recent being in June 2015. In 2007, Inc. awarded Kingston Technology's founders with the Inaugural Distinguished Alumni Goldhirsh Award. In September 2006, Kingston received Intel's "Outstanding Supplier Award for Exceptional Support, Quality and Timely Delivery of FB-DIMM Products". In April 2003 Kingston received

6392-659: The microSD card has an area of just over 1.5 cm , with a thickness of less than 1 mm. NAND flash has achieved significant levels of memory density as a result of several major technologies that were commercialized during the late 2000s to early 2010s. NOR flash was the most common type of Flash memory sold until 2005, when NAND flash overtook NOR flash in sales. Multi-level cell (MLC) technology stores more than one bit in each memory cell . NEC demonstrated multi-level cell (MLC) technology in 1998, with an 80   Mb flash memory chip storing 2 bits per cell. STMicroelectronics also demonstrated MLC in 2000, with

6486-422: The new data must be copied to a new, erased page. If a suitable erased page is available, the data can be written to it immediately. If no erased page is available, a block must be erased before copying the data to a page in that block. The old page is then marked as invalid and is available for erasing and reuse. This is different from operating system LBA view, for example, if operating system writes 1100 0011 to

6580-414: The next one. Depending on the NAND technology, a string typically consists of 32 to 128 NAND cells. Strings are organised into pages which are then organised into blocks in which each string is connected to a separate line called a bitline. All cells with the same position in the string are connected through the control gates by a wordline. A plane contains a certain number of blocks that are connected through

6674-474: The nitride, leading to degradation. Leakage is exacerbated at high temperatures since electrons become more excited with increasing temperatures. CTF technology however still uses a tunneling oxide and blocking layer which are the weak points of the technology, since they can still be damaged in the usual ways (the tunnel oxide can be degraded due to extremely high electric fields and the blocking layer due to Anode Hot Hole Injection (AHHI). Degradation or wear of

6768-413: The number of bits increases, the number of possible states also increases and thus the cell is less tolerant of adjustments to programming voltages, because there is less space between the voltage levels that define each state in a cell. The process of moving electrons from the control gate and into the floating gate is called Fowler–Nordheim tunneling , and it fundamentally changes the characteristics of

6862-516: The other end connected directly to a bit line. This arrangement is called "NOR flash" because it acts like a NOR gate: when one of the word lines (connected to the cell's CG) is brought high, the corresponding storage transistor acts to pull the output bit line low. NOR flash continues to be the technology of choice for embedded applications requiring a discrete non-volatile memory device. The low read latencies characteristic of NOR devices allow for both direct code execution and data storage in

6956-435: The oxides is the reason why flash memory has limited endurance, and data retention goes down (the potential for data loss increases) with increasing degradation, since the oxides lose their electrically insulating characteristics as they degrade. The oxides must insulate against electrons to prevent them from leaking which would cause data loss. In 1991, NEC researchers including N. Kodama, K. Oyama and Hiroki Shirai described

7050-413: The performance and reliability of the NAND chip, the cell must be retired from use. Endurance also decreases with the number of bits in a cell. With more bits in a cell, the number of possible states (each represented by a different voltage level) in a cell increases and is more sensitive to the voltages used for programming. Voltages may be adjusted to compensate for degradation of the silicon oxide, and as

7144-459: The relatively thin oxide, gradually degrading its electrically insulating properties and allowing electrons to be trapped in and pass through freely (leak) from the floating gate into the oxide, increasing the likelihood of data loss since the electrons (the quantity of which is used to represent different charge levels, each assigned to a different combination of bits in MLC Flash) are normally in

7238-639: The retail and e-tail channel. In 2002 Kingston launched a patented memory tester and a new HyperX line of high-performance memory modules, and also patented EPOC chip-stacking technology. In August of that year, Kingston made a $ 50 million investment in Elpida and launched a green initiative for module manufacturing. In 2004, Kingston announced revenues of $ 1.8B for 2003. In September, Kingston announced new DataTraveler Elite USB drives, with hardware-based security encryption. In October, Advanced Micro Devices named Kingston "Outstanding Partner" for contributions to

7332-410: The same bitline. A flash die consists of one or more planes, and the peripheral circuitry that is needed to perform all the read, write, and erase operations. The architecture of NAND flash means that data can be read and programmed (written) in pages, typically between 4 KiB and 16 KiB in size, but can only be erased at the level of entire blocks consisting of multiple pages. When a block is erased, all

7426-407: The same silicon nitride material. An individual memory cell is made up of one planar polysilicon layer containing a hole filled by multiple concentric vertical cylinders. The hole's polysilicon surface acts as the gate electrode. The outermost silicon dioxide cylinder acts as the gate dielectric, enclosing a silicon nitride cylinder that stores charge, in turn enclosing a silicon dioxide cylinder as

7520-570: The serial-linked groups in which conventional NAND flash memory is configured. There is also string stacking, which builds several 3D NAND memory arrays or "plugs" separately, but stacked together to create a product with a higher number of 3D NAND layers on a single die. Often, two or 3 arrays are stacked. The misalignment between plugs is in the order of 30 to 10nm. Growth of a group of V-NAND cells begins with an alternating stack of conducting (doped) polysilicon layers and insulating silicon dioxide layers. Elpida Memory Elpida Memory

7614-469: The top 100 companies and No. 1 in computer hardware category. Gartner Research ranked Kingston as the No. 1 USB drive manufacturer in the world. In 2012, Kingston celebrated 25 years in the memory business. iSuppli ranked Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the 9th consecutive year. Kingston celebrated 10 years of HyperX gaming memory. Kingston releases HyperX branded SSD drives and releases

7708-418: The tunnel dielectric that surrounds a central rod of conducting polysilicon which acts as the conducting channel. Memory cells in different vertical layers do not interfere with each other, as the charges cannot move vertically through the silicon nitride storage medium, and the electric fields associated with the gates are closely confined within each layer. The vertical collection is electrically identical to

7802-622: The world for 2014. Forbes lists Kingston as No. 54 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." In 2016, Kingston Digital, the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, acquired the USB technology and assets of IronKey from Imation Corp. Forbes lists Kingston as No. 51 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." Kingston Technology sold HyperX to HP Inc. in June 2021 for $ 425 million. The deal only includes computer peripherals branded as HyperX, not memory or storage. Kingston retains ownership of

7896-555: The world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the 10th consecutive year. Gartner Research ranks Kingston the no. 1 USB Flash drive manufacturer in the world for the 6th straight year. Forbes lists Kingston as No. 94 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." In 2014, Kingston HyperX released the FURY memory line for entry-level overclocking and game enthusiasts. HyperX then released its Cloud headset. iSuppli (IHS) ranks Kingston as

7990-531: The world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the 11th consecutive year. HyperX sets DDR3 overclocking world record mark at 4620 MHz, using one 4 GB HyperX Predator 2933 MHz DDR3 module. Kingston ships M.2 SATA SSDs for new notebook platforms, small-form factor devices and Z97 motherboards. Kingston releases MobileLite Wireless G2, the second generation media streamer for smartphones and tablets. HyperX demos DDR4 memory at PAX Prime, allowing for faster speeds at

8084-537: The world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the sixth consecutive year. In August, Inc.com 's "Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies" ranked Kingston No. 5 in Private Companies by Revenue and number 1 in the computer hardware category. In October, Forbes listed Kingston as number 97 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." In 2010, Kingston reported revenues of $ 4.1B for 2009. iSuppli ranked Kingston as

8178-408: The world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market with 40.3% market share, up from 32.8% in 2008 and 27.5% in 2007. In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies" ranked Kingston No. 6 in Private Companies by Revenue and number 1 in the computer hardware category. In November, Forbes listed Kingston as number 77 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in

8272-417: Was first announced by Toshiba in 2007. V-NAND was first commercially manufactured by Samsung Electronics in 2013. V-NAND uses a charge trap flash geometry (which was commercially introduced in 2002 by AMD and Fujitsu ) that stores charge on an embedded silicon nitride film. Such a film is more robust against point defects and can be made thicker to hold larger numbers of electrons. V-NAND wraps

8366-479: Was founded in 1999 as a merger of NEC's and Hitachi's DRAM operations and began development operations for DRAM products in 2000. Both companies also spun off their other semiconductor operations into Renesas . In 2001, the company began construction of its 300mm wafer fabrication plant. Later that year, it began sales operations in domestic markets. In 2002, armed with the Sherman Antitrust Act ,

8460-403: Was founded on October 17, 1987, in response to a severe shortage of 1Mbit surface-mount memory chips, Chinese immigrant John Tu designed a new single in-line memory module (SIMM) that used readily available, older-technology through-hole components. In 1990 the company branched out into its first non-memory product line, processor upgrades. By 1992, the firm was ranked No. 1 by Inc. as

8554-664: Was not fined for its involvement due to co-operation with investigators. In 2003, the company took over Mitsubishi Electric Corporation 's DRAM operations and employed Mitsubishi development engineers. In 2004, Elpida Memory went public and was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange . In 2006, the company established Akita Elpida to take on the development of advanced back-end technology processes. In March 2006, Elpida reported consolidated sales of 241,500,000,000 Japanese yen . It employed 3196 people. The company received 140 billion yen in financial aid and loans from

8648-538: Was signed with Power Technology Inc. for the acquisition of the majority stakes in Micron Akita, Inc. as well as Tera Probe Inc. from Micron Technology Inc. In September 2022, the Japanese government provided Micron Technology Inc. a subsidy of $ 320 million for the development of advanced memory chips at the Hiroshima plant. In May 2023, it was announced that Micron Technology would invest up to $ 3.7 billion for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology with support from

8742-796: Was the third largest DRAM maker, held 18 percent of the market by revenue in 2011. On March 28, 2012, Elpida was delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. At the time, Elpida was one of the suppliers of SDRAM components for the A6 processor in the Apple iPhone 5 . In February 2013, Tokyo court and Elpida creditors approved an acquisition by Micron Technology . The company became a fully owned subsidiary of Micron Technology on July 31, 2013. Effective February 28, 2014, Elpida changed its name to Micron Memory Japan and Elpida Akita changed its name to Micron Akita, Inc. In August 2017, an agreement

8836-409: Was to operate at both standard DDR3 1.5 V and 1.35 V to further reduce power consumption. In July 2011, Elpida announced that it planned to raise $ 987 million by selling shares and bonds. In August 2011, Elpida claimed to be the first memory maker to begin sampling 25 nm DRAMs. On February 27, 2012, Elpida filed for bankruptcy. With liabilities of 448 billion yen (US$ 5.5 billion),

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