SUNNYVALE, CA -- May 1, 1998 --A new packaging standard covering pinout and footprint specifications in high-density flash memory has been adopted by AMD and Atmel Corporation, the companies said today.
The standard, proposed by AMD to the JEDEC (Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council) Committee, applies to a fine-pitch Ball Grid Array (FBGA) package that will hold flash memories ranging from 4 to 64 megabits in density. The package has a 6x8 ball grid array with a ball pitch of 0.8 millimeters.
AMD will use the standard for its 2.7 Volt and 1.8 Volt products in the Am29LVxxx, Am29DLxxx and Am29SLxxx series of devices. Atmel will use the Chip Scale Ball Grid Array (CBGA) package first for its AT49LVxxx, AT49BVxxx and AT49SVxxx series of flash devices ranging in density from 8 to 64 megabits.
"An agreement between flash memory suppliers on a standard for footprint and pinout of the FBGA package is a major step towards providing viable, easy-to-use, chip-scale flash packaging solutions to the industry," said Walid Maghribi, group vice president for AMD's Memory group. "We are pleased that Atmel has taken a leadership position in becoming one of the first to support this proposed standard," Maghribi added.
John Bryant, Atmel's vice president of marketing for flash memory, termed the agreement "one step in the direction to ease the confusion in the flash marketplace. Designers can now design in a footprint and a package, and decide later whose flash to use in the system."
This high-density FBGA package is well suited for low-power, small form-factor applications such as cellular telephones and other hand-held battery equipment. Other flash memory manufacturers are expected to adopt this standard.
About Atmel
Headquartered in San Jose, California, with additional manufacturing facilities in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Rousset, France, Atmel designs, develops, manufactures and markets on a worldwide basis a broad line of complex integrated circuits. In addition to several families of nonvolatile programmable memories, the Company manufactures programmable logic devices, application-specific devices, microcontrollers and various mixed signal circuits. Atmel's shares are listed on the National Market System of NASDAQ with the symbol ATML.
