Flash Programmer said to Cut Programming Time by more than 80%

18th May 2007

ES Admin

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Adaptsys has announced the Flashstream Flash Vector Programming System, offering the industry's fastest programming of NAND and NOR flash memory. Flashstream programs devices at six to 12 times the speed of existing solutions. Programming times are dependant upon device characteristics, and are as low as 2.5 percent above the theoretical minimum programming time. The system offers up to four programming sites per machine, and allows up to four machines to be daisy-chained, providing sixty-four slots to meet the demands of high-volume manufacturing environments.

The Flashstream programmer is manufactured by BPM and is ideal for both programming houses and electronics manufacturing facilities. The dramatic increase in speed not only reduces labour costs, but also cuts capital investment as fewer machines are needed to perform the same function. The programmer has the capacity to support NAND and NOR flash memory devices as well as EPROMs. Future device support will be distributed to all Flashstream customers under software contract.

Faster programming speeds are achieved through synchronous operations that eliminate the dead times when the device under test (DUT) waits on the programmer. The result is programming near the theoretical limits of the silicon design — the faster the device, the faster the device is programmed. The system programs NAND and NOR Flash devices up to 32 Gb and has upgradeable RAM for future densities. It comes standard with 4191 Mb (32.7 Gb) memory per site that is upgradeable to handle future densities and uses USB2.0 to communicate with the host PC. The programmer also includes bad block replacement scheme for NAND and low voltage support.

Supporting a wide range or packages, and featuring the capability to program with one, two, three or four socket cards, the Flashstream is the only solution on the market that allows customers to purchase a single socket card for development and prototyping, reducing the cost of supporting additional packages. Socket cards are easy to remove and require little storage space. All cards include Active, Pass and Fail LED status indicators, as well as the option of Auto-start on continuity check.

Flash memory has been the single largest growth sector in the Semiconductor industry for several years. Last year, 5 billion units of flash memory were used in the electronics industry with a future forecasted per year growth rate of 18 percent. The memory density used is increasing rapidly, particularly in applications such as wireless devices, navigation electronics and personal music systems, placing increased demands on programming speed.