A report released last week by Instat/MDR, a Scottsdale, Ariz., market research firm, found that the high costs associated with embedded Flash are slowing its adoption rate.

While designers find the idea of embedded flash memory is tempting, most new designs cannot sustain the added expense, both in overhead and cost, the report said.

Still, the outlook isn’t entirely bleak. Instat/MDR predicts that worldwide shipments of customer-specific, cell-based designs containing one or more blocks of embedded flash memory will increase from $195.8 million in 2002 to $363.9 million by 2007, a compound annual growth rate of 13.2%.

"While the problems embedding flash are very similar to those seen in the embedded DRAM (eDRAM) market, those associated with eFlash are more complex and diverse," said Jerry Worchel, senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. "However, while the use of both of these embedded memory technologies will continue to increase in dollar value through 2007 and beyond, the replacement of DRAM with 1-T SRAM will cause the growth of embedded flash memory to grow at a considerably faster pace." The fact that flash is non-volatile and deterministic will secure its edge over DRAM, he said.

eFlash designs will account for less than 20% of the overall market for customer-specific, cell-based designs, the firm said, with the highest number of these designs being high-end communications infrastructure applications. The company also forecast that most of the initial deployments would be in the Americas, with deployments in the Americas and Japan accounting for three-quarters of total deployments by 2007.

The report costs $2,995. To purchase it or to get more information, go here.