spansion
Latest
Elpida and Spansion move from 'it's complicated' to 'engaged,' look to conquer NAND universe
The more the merrier, right? Cutesy sayings aside, the world is gearing up to say "hello" to yet another player in the NAND flash memory market, as Japan's own Elpida Memory (which currently specializes in DRAM) will be joining the fray in the coming months. Said outfit stated this week that it has entered into an alliance with Spansion (the former flash memory joint venture between Fujitsu and AMD), with Spansion licensing its NAND flash intellectual property to Elpida as part of the deal. If all goes to plan, Elpida will begin producing flash chips at its western Japan plant "as early as next year," with some of the output being funneled directly to Spansion. 'Course, with the explosion in smartphone popularity, it's not shocking to see a DRAM stalwart looking for ways to dip its toes in that high-demand NAND stuff, and as consumers, you certainly won't find us kvetching about the competition.
Lawsuit whirligig: Spansion and Kodak sue Samsung, LG sued only by Kodak
Mark it down as a coincidence if you'd like, but a flurry of lawsuits revolving around the same companies just became public knowledge. For starters, Eastman Kodak has decided to sue Samsung and LG, alleging infringement of digital camera patents relating to image capture, compression and data storage; the suit is asking for "unspecified damages, and both cases seek injunctions prohibiting Samsung and LG from further imports and sales of the products." Just hours later, Samsung hit back with this response: "Samsung plans to respond actively to these litigations and will remain committed to serving our customers by ensuring that accurate and reliable delivery of our products is not compromised in any way." Got all that? Good. Moving on, we've also got chipmaker Spansion tossing a suit in Samsung's direction, which is asking for "billions" in damages for patent infringement presumably related to flash memory. Who says it's a slow period in the courtroom?Read - Kodak sues Samsung / LGRead - Samsung's reply to lawsuitsRead - Spansion sues Samsung
Spansion announces plans for increased handset security
With cellphones becoming more and more computer-like, that invariably means that they're also susceptible to some decidedly computer-like problems; we're talking viruses, DoS attacks, and other headaches. Though far from the first to address the problem, Spansion is promising a new level of security for handsets by implementing security measures directly within the Flash memory subsystem. In addition to warding off threats, Spansion says their system will also enable data recovery, as well as allow for secure mobile financial transactions and access control for things like using a cellphone to open a car door or start a car. A Software Development Kit (SDK) should be available before the end of the year, with the actual security controller available in something called the Spansion Multi Chip Package (MCP) sometime in the first half of 2007. No word yet on any handset manufactures that have signed on to offer the system, however.
