Milestone-Proposal:The Floating Gate EEPROM, 1976-1978
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Docket #:2011-08
This is a draft proposal, that has not yet been submitted. To submit this proposal, click on the edit button in toolbar above, indicated by an icon displaying a pencil on paper. At the bottom of the form, check the box that says "Submit this proposal to the IEEE History Committee for review. Only check this when the proposal is finished" and save the page.
To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation?
Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old?
Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy.
Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity?
Was it of at least regional importance?
Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)?
Has the IEEE Section(s) in which the plaque(s) will be located agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony?
Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated?
Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone?
Yes
Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:
1978-1989
Title of the proposed milestone:
Creating the Foundation of the Data Storage Flash Memory Industry
Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance; if personal name(s) are included, such name(s) must follow the achievement itself in the citation wording: Text absolutely limited by plaque dimensions to 70 words; 60 is preferable for aesthetic reasons.
200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.
IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.
In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?
Santa Clara Valley
IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:
IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):
Unit: Santa Clara Valley Section
Senior Officer Name: Brian Berg
IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:
Unit: Santa Clara Valley Section
Senior Officer Name: Brian Berg
IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):
IEEE Section: Santa Clara Valley Section
IEEE Section Chair name: Brian Berg
IEEE Section: Santa Clara Valley Section
IEEE Section Chair name: Kim Parnell
Milestone proposer(s):
Proposer name: Brian Berg
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public
Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.
Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):
SanDisk Headquarters, Milpitas, CA, Visitors’ Lobby in Bldg. 6
Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.
Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. SanDisk Headquarters, 601 McCarthy Blvd., Milpitas, CA 95035 (37.417158,-121.920927). This is Bldg. 6, which includes the main Visitors' Lobby.
Are the original buildings extant?
No
Details of the plaque mounting:
How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?
The Visitors' Lobby has direct public access, and the building is locked during non-business hours.
Who is the present owner of the site(s)?
SanDisk Corp.
What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include detailed support at the end of this section preceded by "Justification for Inclusion of Name(s)". (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)
“System Flash,” a flash memory chip architecture that is coupled to a dedicated controller and firmware in order to manage the memory cells so as to emulate a magnetic disk, was pioneered by Eli Harari and SanDisk. This architecture's evolution from NOR to multistate NAND flash enabled a new class of reliable, rugged and low-power portable computing devices that has displaced photographic film, and which is rapidly displacing optical and magnetic media. Data storage in flash memory is a critical enabler of digital photography, smart phones and mobile computing, and it will continue to enable new market segments. Ubiquitous access to personal data has become a reality.
What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?
“System Flash” overcame the unreliable nature of NAND flash memory with a technique that created a long-term non-volatile medium that could be reliably rewritten, and which included the ability to remap and replace defective and “worn out” cells with substitute cells. The use of NAND was significant due to its lower cost, scalability, and ability to support massive parallelisms in write and erase operations as compared with NOR. Cost reductions were accelerated through the successful commercialization of 2 bits-per-cell (X2) and 3 bits-per-cell (X3) technology. The ability of “System Flash” to emulate the random access sectors of a disk drive allowed it to be a direct replacement for disk drive data storage. Its compact size and low-power filled a niche that could not be filled by disk drives, and the compounding effect of Moore’s Law is ever-expanding the size of that niche.
What features set this work apart from similar achievements?
EPROM, EEPROM and NOR flash were important technologies that filled the need for a non-volatile storage medium. NAND Flash provided a denser and more scalable medium than NOR. NAND was initially considered a niche product since its serial access was considered inferior to NOR’s random access. However, this serial characteristic gave NAND a block storage feature like that of a disk drive. NAND’s unreliable characteristics, particularly over time, were able to be overcome by “System Flash.”
Why was the achievement successful and impactful?
Santa Clara Valley Section: Kim Parnell, Chair (parnelltk@ieee.org), Brian Berg, Vice Chair (b.berg@ieee.org)
Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.
Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.
Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).
Please recommend reviewers by emailing their names and email addresses to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please include the docket number and brief title of your proposal in the subject line of all emails.
IEEE-MilestoneProposal-DataInFlashMemory-Background.pdf
