Toshiba is preparing to support users diverse use for their mobile products and supply memory cards with decent storage capacities.

The company has commercialised a new series of embedded NAND Flash memory devices that achieve the industry's largest capacity. The new 16-gigabyte devices are designed for application in mobile consumer products, such as mobile phones and video cameras.

Samples will become available later in this year and mass production will start within the year. Ahead of that, Toshiba will start shipping 8GB samples from this month, and start mass production by the end of the year.

The new 16GB chip combines eight 2GB NAND chips fabricated with Toshiba's cutting-edge 56nm process technology, along with a controller chip, in a standard small size package.

There is growing demand for memories with a controller function, it minimises development requirements of products and eases integration into system designs.