Micronix fixes flash memory for 100 million write-erase cycles

Taiwanese engineers at Micronix were not too happy with the limited life cycle of the flash memory. They seem to have come up with a solution to fix the flash memory fadeout. The problem with current generation of flash memory is that after surviving about 10k write-erase cycles, it's rendered useless. Each write cycle degrades the insulation causing failure of the cells. Taiwanese engineers have developed a self-healing solution for the flash memory that survives over 100 million such cycles.



Micronix manufactures non volatile memory (NVM) and offer solutions based on NOR, NAND and ROM. The engineers found out that the memory storage cells can be restored to life if they were heated for sufficient time. The long-baking time, however wasn't a very practical solution. So they designed on-board heaters that would heat the cell to about 800 degree C so for a very limited time so that the cell returns to its fine working state. The biggest advantage of this method is that it doesn't have to run very often.

We hope the technology makes it to the mainstream soon. Explore more on this update #-Link-Snipped-#.