According to the vendor of Aeon devices, Virage Logic Corp. (Fremont, Calif), this semiconductor technology is the first one qualified according to the AEC-Q100 standard that is build exclusively using standard CMOS processes and not requireing additional masks or processing steps during manufacturing. The company says that its NV memory is cheaper in production than flash memory since it does away with costly manufacturing steps associated with floating gates, one of the characteristics of flash memory. At the same time, Aeon reduces engineering efforts and costs involved with integrating the non-volatile memory into system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, the vendor claims.


