Background: History And Development

Intel was the first company to produce Flash memory and put it on the market in unit counts. In 1988, the group launched a 256 kbit Flash chip - with the dimensions of a shoebox. Intel demonstrated the advantages of "embedded memory" using a very early voice recorder, which could easily have filled an attaché case.

Intel's invention was the so-called NOR Flash, developed from EPROM and EEPROM chip technologies, and equipped with an SRAM interface. NOR Flash has write and delete speeds that would be considered slow by today's standards, and can handle only a small number of write cycles (about 100,000). It is found in areas where permanently stored data needs to be only infrequently changed. For example, operating systems of digital cameras or mobile phones are stored on NOR Flash units.

Intel NOR Flash

Unlike earlier technologies, Flash made it possible to delete or save data in several places in one step; this represented an enormous speed advantage. Still, even today, the non-volatile nature of the memory is considered one of its biggest advantages: data is preserved even when no power is applied.