Flash Memory Slides Into Watches

As flash memory chips shrink in size and grow in capacity they're spawning small portable memory devices, such as flash disks and key rings--and now a Vienna firm has packaged flash memory into something nearly ubiquitous: a wristwatch.

Cartagena Handels, which sells watches under the Laks brand name, is offering three versions of the Laks Memory watch, each with a different memory capacity. A short USB cable is also built into the watch and can be tucked away in a groove and clip in the wristband when not in use. The cable is only a few centimeters long, so users have to remove the watch to connect it to a PC or use a supplied one-meter extension cord.

The watch weighs 1.5 ounces and is available with several different storage capacities. A 32MB version is priced at $47; a 64MB device, $71; and a 128MB watch, $103. The memory works with computers running Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP, Mac OS 8.6 or higher, and Linux 2.4, according to the company. The watches are sold online from Laks.

Other Small Efforts

Advances in manufacturing and packaging technology are also decreasing the size of flash memory chips. Either more memory can be crammed into a given space or a given amount of memory can occupy less space.

Intel, the largest manufacturer of flash memory chips, recently provided an example of such progress. It showed new chips that have five pieces of silicon wafer stacked one on top of the other inside a single package, which is an increase on its previous most advanced technology that allowed stacking four layers high. The entire package is just .05 inches high, and Intel predicted this would be smaller--shrinking to .04 inches--sometime next year.

It also showed a prototype technology that uses a film rather than rigid die in fabrication and further reduces the thickness. In the prototype, Intel had managed to stack eight chips inside a single package.