Micron Technology today announced mass production of new NAND flash memory products using its 34-nanometer (nm) process technology. Micron?s new 16- and 32-gigabit (Gb) NAND chips pair large capacity with performance.

The newly architected 32Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND chip is 17 percent smaller than Micron?s first-generation 32Gb chip. The 16Gb MLC NAND chip, at just 84mm², provides high-capacity in an ultra tiny package. Micron is also now sampling 8- and 16Gb single-level cell (SLC) NAND chips using the 34nm process.

Both products feature an ONFI 2.1 synchronous interface that delivers transfer speeds of up to 200 megabytes per second (MB/s). In comparison, traditional SLC NAND is limited to 40 MB/s. With this improved transfer speed, the interface delivers the fastest read and write throughputs offered in today?s NAND devices. And with solid state drives (SSDs) trending toward a SATA 6 Gb/second interface, the high-speed NAND interface enables manufacturers to design products that deliver twice the throughput of today?s existing SATA 3Gb/s solutions.

Additionally, Lexar Media, Inc. ? a subsidiary of Micron ? is taking advantage of Micron?s new 34nm NAND products by delivering a new range of flash memory cards and USB flash drives utilizing this technology. Lexar Media is utilizing Micron?s high-capacity 34nm technology in its memory cards, including the new Lexar Platinum II 32GB Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) memory card and the Lexar 16GB microSDHC mobile memory card. By the end of September, Micron?s new 34nm NAND will also be used in a wide range of Lexar microSD and microSDHC cards, Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards, and various capacities of Secure Digital, SDHC, CompactFlash, and Memory Stick PRO Duo cards. Additionally, Micron 34nm NAND will be used in Lexar?s JumpDrive USB flash drives, including JumpDrive Retrax, JumpDrive TwistTurn, JumpDrive FireFly, and JumpDrive Secure II Plus.

The first Lexar memory card to feature Micron?s new 32Gb NAND chip is the new 32GB Lexar Platinum II SDHC memory card.

In addition to its high capacity, the new Lexar Platinum II SDHC card is speed-rated at 60x (Class 4), offering a minimum-sustained write speed of 9MB per second that enables photo enthusiasts to take advantage of their camera?s burst-mode setting to capture many images in rapid succession. In addition, a minimum-sustained read speed of 12MB per second ensures fast transfers of images from the card to a host computer.

Micron?s tiny 16Gb, 34nm NAND chip, which is approximately one-third the size of a keyboard key, is ideal for ultra-small, high-capacity microSD cards, such as the Lexar 16GB microSDHC mobile memory card.