Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the industry’s first 45nm embedded flash logic process development called eFlash. Samsung successfully implemented the new process into the smart card test chip, which means that this process technology fulfills the stringent quality requirements of the security solution market and can be successfully deployed on a commercial scale.

“Samsung’s 45nm eFlash logic process has the potential to be broadly adopted into various components for security solutions and mobile devices, including smart card IC, NFC IC, eSE [embedded secure element] and TPM [trusted platform module],” said Taehoon Kim, vice president of marketing, System LSI Business, Samsung Electronics.

The smart card IC based on Samsung’s 45nm eFlash logic process guarantees high reliability and endurance of one million cycles per flash memory cell. The performance results are the industry’s best class and superior to any other solutions currently on the market, generally rated for 500,000 cycles.

Through the improvement in both flash cell structure and operating scheme, the test chip features random access time to read memory that is 50 percent faster and the power efficiency is enhanced by 25 percent over previous products built on the 80nm eFlash logic process.

Samsung said in its official release that its 45nm eFlash logic technology is suited for consumer microcontrollers and automotive chips that require higher speed, larger memory capacity and higher power efficiency.

Initial smart card IC samples for commercialization using this 45nm eFlash logic technology are expected to be available in the second half of 2014.