Embedded MMC Rising
Once the redheaded step-child of the mobile memory market, Multimedia Card (MMC) technology has come a long way.
After a brief success in some early Nokia mobile handsets, suppliers abandoned the external form factor and reincarnated the technology as embedded MMC (eMMC), combining flash memory and a controller in a small BGA package.
Now targeted at consumer electronics devices with medium- to high-density requirements, eMMC has found its way into many hot products that have been rolled out this year—including the recent Palm Pre, Amazon Kindle II and Flip MinoHD. The eMMC devices were discovered as part of iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Service after it dismantled all of these products to discover what type of memory they included.
Making life Easy
One of the benefits vendors are seeing from eMMC is that it standardizes the interface for using flash memory and provides a single set of specifications that all suppliers must meet. Given that various suppliers have very different roadmaps and schedules, controller vendors are sometimes not able to maintain the pace to continually perform revisions in order to accommodate each new die that is rolled off a manufacturing facility. Using eMMC eliminates this from the equation.
This becomes even more of a benefit as manufacturing process geometries continue to shrink and the sheer number of flash memory suppliers has swelled during the past three years.
Another benefit to the eMMC platform is the reduced time to market. Whereas new flash technology has been released in the past without a corresponding controller in the market to provide support, the eMMC is co-developed and embedded with a controller in the same package as the flash. New products are able to be rolled out more quickly and cost reductions are passed along to the consumer. As process geometry shrinks and innovations arise, this is going to be an increasing issue that developers are faced with.
After a brief success in some early Nokia mobile handsets, suppliers abandoned the external form factor and reincarnated the technology as embedded MMC (eMMC), combining flash memory and a controller in a small BGA package.
Now targeted at consumer electronics devices with medium- to high-density requirements, eMMC has found its way into many hot products that have been rolled out this year—including the recent Palm Pre, Amazon Kindle II and Flip MinoHD. The eMMC devices were discovered as part of iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Service after it dismantled all of these products to discover what type of memory they included.
Making life Easy
One of the benefits vendors are seeing from eMMC is that it standardizes the interface for using flash memory and provides a single set of specifications that all suppliers must meet. Given that various suppliers have very different roadmaps and schedules, controller vendors are sometimes not able to maintain the pace to continually perform revisions in order to accommodate each new die that is rolled off a manufacturing facility. Using eMMC eliminates this from the equation.
This becomes even more of a benefit as manufacturing process geometries continue to shrink and the sheer number of flash memory suppliers has swelled during the past three years.
Another benefit to the eMMC platform is the reduced time to market. Whereas new flash technology has been released in the past without a corresponding controller in the market to provide support, the eMMC is co-developed and embedded with a controller in the same package as the flash. New products are able to be rolled out more quickly and cost reductions are passed along to the consumer. As process geometry shrinks and innovations arise, this is going to be an increasing issue that developers are faced with.
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