An advanced embedded flash technology for broad market applications

In June 2010, Freescale introduced the Kinetis product family of ARM ® -core based 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) built on the 90nm TFS (Thin Film Storage) embedded flash technology. That was the first time a flash technology based on the silicon nanocrystals as the storage medium was ever productized — fully 14 years after Tiwari introduced the concept of nanocrystal memory [1]. This paper describes the TFS technology, the architecture, the special features, the robustness, and the extendibility to 40nm and beyond.