Brief History of ETOX™ NOR Flash Memory

Abstract

NOR Flash memory grew from a simple concept in the 80's to worldwide revenue of US$4.8B in 2011. Stacked gate NOR (ETOX NOR at Intel) has highest revenue share of different NOR flash types. Cost reduction was made possible by continuous innovation along many fronts. Key enabler is Moore's Law scaling augmented by multiple self aligned techniques. Another key one is multilevel-cell technology giving 2 bits of information in a single cell. With emergence of NAND at much lower cost, NOR flash market is projected not to grow but NOR is still dominant memory for BIOS and program store in many electronic devices.