Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[madrose1]

Re: ENER , how much "confidence" would you assign to "phase-change memory" as a flash memory replacement ? In a good market ENER has seen much higher levels...

Maybe a quick comment if you have a pov zeev ,
here's the release:

By Nicole Urbanowicz
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Shares of Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ENER) jumped as much as 10% Thursday, reflective of increasing investor confidence in the phase-change memory technology market.

At Intel Corp.'s (INTC) Developer Forum held this week, Intel displayed a prototype 128 MB wafer based on Energy Conversion Devices' phase-change memory that it intends to use as a flash memory replacement.

Energy Conversion Devices' Ovonyx memory technology uses a reversible phase-change memory process previously commercialized worldwide in rewritable CD and DVD optical memory disks.

"We believe this is a significant development that is likely to drive Energy Conversion Devices' share price higher," Jefferies analyst Jeffrey W. Bencik wrote in a research note.

"This is the first confirmation from Intel that it was developing a product based on this technology," Bencik said.

Bencik doesn't own any shares in the company. Jefferies acted as a placement agent in connection with a PIPE transaction for Energy Conversion Devices in February 2005, and makes a market in shares of the company and Intel.

""To be sure, "From a technology standpoint, [the 128-megabit chips] are a proof of concept product. ""

It's necessary to invest in technologies such as PCM because flash memory will eventually hit a wall in which it can no longer scale with silicon manufacturing.

"This is pretty exciting stuff," said Ed Doller, chief technology officer for Intel's Flash Memory Group, based in Folsom, Calif., during an interview with eWEEK.

"We're getting pretty close to the limits [of fabricating silicon] in developing NOR and NAND flash memory; our engineers are wondering 'What's next?'"

Doller reached for an often-used but appropriate saying: "This is a case in which 'Necessity is the mother of invention' is very true. We were forced to look for something else, completely different. That's why we decided to invest in PCM.

"There are definitely limits to what you can do with our current flash methodology. There needs to be a complete quantum leap somewhere along the line to push everything forward. We believe PCM are going to be that quantum leap."

Moreover, PCM has the potential to go into production before many other flash alternatives, he said.

During the interview, Doller produced what he said was one of the very first PCM wafers, containing numerous 128-megabit PCM chips produced in a ST Microelectronics chip plant in Agrate, Italy, and sent to him just hours before.

Dollar opened a round, black plastic container to reveal several foam protective separations around a 10-inch round wafer of chips safely packaged in between.

PCM chips, meanwhile, can be made backward-compatible to NOR flash—allowing them to fit into the same sockets—and also be produced using CMOS (complimentary metal oxide silicon) processes used by Intel and other chip makers in high volume today.

To be sure, "From a technology standpoint, [the 128-megabit chips] are a proof of concept product.

However, Intel can begin sampling them to customers soon, and it could begin selling them in the next couple of years, Doller said.

Intel already is the world's largest producer of NOR flash memory chips, which are used in cellular telephones and in many embedded applications.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is also a big maker of higher-end NAND chips, although not quite on the same scale as Samsung and Toshiba.

Flash memory microprocessors are becoming ubiquitous, and industry experts expect them to be populating laptops, automobiles and a number of other products in the near future for the next five to 10 years.