Mar. 10, 2008 – SanDisk and TSMC have verified SanDisk’s 80nm OTP NAND chip at TSMC, and the two firms are now progressing to 45nm chip development — work that is raising industry eyebrows since Spansion is also a top TSMC client with its competitive ORNAND chips, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

TSMC, which has made note that it wants to be involved in production of both NAND and NOR flash technology, expects to have memory sales account for 10% of its sales by year’s end, but the SanDisk and Spansion chips will be a big part of that, with both firms adopting 65nm and 45nm process technologies, the report notes.

SanDisk acquired the one-time programmable (OTP) chip technology through its 2005 merger with Matrix Semiconductor. The technology incorporates a read-only memory based on multilayer antifuse structure. The paper notes some industry watchers expect OTP NAND chips to replace MaskROM chips due to its bigger storage and faster access speeds.