Intel and Hitachi have agreed to support a common industry specification for memory in consumer electronics devices. The pair join Mitsubishi and Sharp, the prime movers behind stacked chip scale packages (S-CSP), a format designed to produce small, dense storage modules for mobile phones, hand-helds and so on. Intel's support of a standard will be linked to the company's recent moves in the consumer, embedded and appliance markets; although the company's efforts so far have been embryonic, as sure as eggs is eggs it will be wanting to be well to the fore when the reference platforms start being built. Volume S-CSP devices have been shipping for over a year, and Sharp and Mitsubishi proposed a standard specification in September 1998. The initiative is also supported by Seiko Epson, Sanyo, Mitsui, Amkor Technology of the USA and Power Technology of Taiwan, but it now looks pretty much like an alliance between Intel and the Japanese giants, with Korea's Samsung and Japan's Sony as significant absentees. S-CSP stacks flash memory and LPSRAM die on top of one another, producing a package 8mm x11mm with a 0.8mm ball pitch. ®