Hyundai maps flash entry

Electronic News, June 12, 1995 by Anthony Cataldo

SUNNYVALE, CALIF.--Jumping into the fastest growing non-volatile memory market, Hyundai Electronics last week revealed it has created a U.S.-based Flash Memory division targeting the socket-flash applications to challenge Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The move is also another sign of the Korea-based company's desire to create a larger semiconductor presence in the U.S.

The new Flash Memory division, located in Sunnyvale, Calif., expects to roll out its first products by the second half of 1996. In the meantime, the company has launched an aggressive recruitment drive to gather flash memory talent and has recently installed a senior management team (EN, Antenna, June 5).

Steve Grossman, VP of marketing for Hyundai's Flash Memory division, whose most recent role was product marketing manager for AMD's non-volatile products, said Hyundai is giving the "start-up" division carte blanche to become a successful player. "Hyundai's focus is to spend whatever they have to in order to win in this business. Its a long-term commitment."

The company jumped from the ninth largest DRAM vendor in 1993 to the fourth largest the following year, according to In-Stat. Over the same period, DRAM sales zoomed from $703 million to $1.9 billion. Hyundai is betting flash will eventually become the second highest profit-making product line behind DRAMs.

Hyundai plans to develop a single-voltage, NOR-type architecture aimed at embedded code by the second half of 1996. Market-leader Intel sells mixed-voltage NOR parts while AMD, which is hoping to unseat Intel as the largest flash supplier by year-end, is backing single voltage parts. Other flash vendors such as Toshiba, Samsung and National Semiconductor are pushing NAND-based flash devices, which use a smaller cell size and are geared for mass storage.

"You need NOR-type cells for embedded applications," said Mr. Grossman. "That's where 90 percent of the flash market is today. The market for mass storage is not there yet."

Hyundai is also in the early stages of developing a new type of architecture designed by W. Tom Anderson, president of the new division, who is credited with designing 512K CMOS EpROMs in 1982 and helping engineer flash memory technology in 1984 at Exel Microelectronics. Said Mr. Grossman: "There is some possibility of coming out with some revolutionary things in the '97 and '98 timeframe."

The other members of the management team are Dr. Kamal Rajkanan, VP of engineering, former director of IC design at Zilog; Sam Young, VP of business development, founder and former VP of sales at Corsair Microsystems; and John Chang, design manager, former flash design manager at Exel.

Hyundai expects to become a major player in the flash by making a commitment furnish capacity below 0.5-micron, Mr. Grossman said. "The real challenge for Intel and AMD is having enough capacity. Fundamentally it comes down to money and who can keep up with the growth."

Hyundai is on an aggressive path to expanding capacity at a rate of one fab a year. In September, it will bring on line Fab 6 in Ichon, Korea--a 0.35-micron, eight-inch wafer facility capable of producing 30,000 wafers per month. Hyundai also recently revealed plans to build a $1.3B fab in Eugene, Ore. (EN, May 29), and earlier this year acquired NCR Microelectronics (now Symbios Logic) from AT&T.

Mr. Grossman said the long-term prospects for flash technology leaves room for new players. Dataquest estimates flash memory markets will grow from $887 million to $6.2 billion by the year 2000. Besides capacity expansions, Hyundai has also demonstrated a willingness to locate new business ventures in the U.S. Similar to its flash endeavor, Hyundai last year established a U.S.-based Multimedia division in Milpitas, Calif. It has unveiled an MPEG-2 video decompression device (EN, April 10).

"Hyundai has recognized that the expertise in flash is in the U.S. today," Mr. Grossman said.