AMD procured a full ZRAM technology license in January 2006, and now the company has also procured a technology license for ZRAM Gen2. Craig Sander, Corporate Vice President, technology development at AMD, commented: ?We are very excited about ZRAM Gen2. The combination of density, power, and performance coupled with its ability to work with our standard manufacturing processes makes it an extremely attractive option for use in our future microprocessors.?

So we get the generic statement about use in future processors that we had before. Is ZRAM going to be in Barcelona? We have no indication either way at this point, but we will do some digging. Thanks to Dante for the link!

Update:We have learned from AMD that we will not be seeing ZRAM in their 65nm chips. That means Barcelona will not include this new technology. This leaves the door open that perhaps their 45nm chips will include it.

Spansion in 2006 increased its NOR revenue to US$2.6 billion, up 25.6% from US$2.1 billion in 2005. This far exceeded the overall NOR market's revenue growth of 8.1% for the year. Spansion's share of worldwide NOR revenue grew to 30.4% in 2006, up from 26.1% in 2005. This surge in market share, combined with a decline in annual NOR revenue at competitor Intel, caused Spansion to rise to the top spot in the global rankings in 2006. Intel dropped to second place, with its market share declining to 24.2% in 2006, down from 29% in 2005.

The 65-nm MirrorBit Ornand family, with densities of 512 Mb, 1 GB and 2 GB, is designed to enable rich multi-media handset capabilities, including digital television streaming, multi-shot photography with up to 5-megapixel pictures and CD-quality audio, Spansion said. The company said its multi-chip package solution combines MirrorBit NOR and MirrorBit Ornand and enables faster boot time, with improved power savings when in standby mode compared to pure code shadowing solutions.