Quality control is very important to anyone who wants repeat business. Any modern 300mm flash fab worth's is silicon will perform at least the following tests.

1. Wafer level tests inline between mask steps
2. Wafer level tests after completed processing. Chips are usually either changed into MLC or SLC at this step. If any repairs are needed they are completed here (by using built in redundancy).
3. Select wafers are sent on for additional testing to verify cycling and to monitor for mean time between failure shifts.
4. After die are cut and packaged repeat tests above to ensure the packaging process didn't jack up the wafer.

The worst case scenario in all of this is to have a customer begin to complain about issues w/ your chips. That means your probe scheme either didn't catch the issue or the issue matters now because of another issue and their combined result means death.

After you have identified the issue then its long road to find that at your first implant level was jacked because a tech ignored a tool error on a batch of 125 wafers and sent them on w/o any documentation.

k1, lambda, NA. Choose wisely.

Defects and resolution are two separate issues. Yes, NAND is much more tolerable to defects because its full of backups and whatnot. But, what does that have to do w/ printing @ 22nm?

xx nm is still feature size. The method you utilize to get there may be very complicated, but at the end of the process you still have a feature that measures xx nm. Why does that not count?

More IR LEDs!

From what I remember, for the given external quantum efficiency (ranging in 1-5% area), LED's responsivity are in the vicinity of 10 to 50 microwatts per milliamp. Theoretically, as the wavelength of the LED decreases, the responsitity increases so the blue-er the better.

So, where does the heat in a CFL come from? I can understand incandescents as they are black body sources basically, and LEDs should produce very little heat as they convert electrons into visible photons very well (and do not produce any photons in the deep IR). CFLs are a giant black box to me though.

Actually with LEDs it should be possible to make ANY spectrum of your choice. A few UV, Blue, Green, Red, and IR LEDs thrown together actually could create a perfectly flat spectrum across the board. Also, if you put some adjustments on them, you could emulate Sunny, cloudy, moonshine or earthshine. Anybody know of companies selling these types of customized units?

Actually US Customs usually does not concern itself w/ what leaves the country. Canada/Mexico/Chinese Customs may have something else to say about your $10k altogether. Also, US Customs does occasionally search people leaving the US.

What about if you calculate the cost of a IOP instead of the cost of a GB? Are there some applications in which you need a speedy read vs a cheap bit?

1. Where's your study? 2. Just call up Intel and ask them to send you some SLC SSDs, I'm sure you could have them make up a few in a jiffy!

DRAMEXCHANGE: 16Gb SLC $13.41, MLC: $4.92

Ok, here's the deal. MLC and SLC die are the same. The only difference is how the guys in probe decide to burn them in. So, I can make you 1 die that is xGB or I can give you a die that is 2-3xGB. Same cost to me, what do you want? The only way to make them cheaper is to get more die/wafer this means: 1. Smaller die (more expense scanners). 2. Bigger wafers (may I please have 10 billion dollars for a fab for which the tools have not been invented yet?).

1. MLC > SLC ! MLC = 2*SLC (it depends on the number of bits per cell as there are 2, 3, 4, and 5 bits per cell technology). 2. MLC is great for MANY applications. i(application name here), SD cards, etc all need cheap flash and MLC is a great solution. 3. MLC has reduced writes/erases, not reads. If you just need to read data, use MLC. 4. How many writes/erases does your desktop do everyday? Apply number to MLC/SLC technology and account for the initial cost of the device. What is better for YOUR application? 5. Samsung SSD blow, go buy Intel drives and hear angles part as you boot your favorite linux distro.

When traveling into the US from a foreign country (this obviously does NOT apply to domestic travel, but good to know) 10. How much cash may I bring with me for my trip? There is no limit on the total amount of money or monetary instruments that may be brought into or taken out of the United States. However, if you transport or cause to be transported, more than $10,000 in monetary instruments on any occasion into or out of the United States, or if you receive more than that amount, in behalf of someone else and then transport it, you must file a Customs Form 4790 with U.S. Customs. Failure to comply can result in civil and criminal penalties, including seizure of the currency or monetary instruments. Monetary instruments include U.S. or foreign coins, currency, traveler's checks, money orders, and negotiable instruments or investment securities in bearer form are all considered when determining the total $10,000 reporting requirement.