"This kind of memory has never been seen before. Manufacturers of such items as cellular phones and consumer electronics will welcome it the most," Samsung President Hwang Chang-gyu said.

"With our Flex-OneNand, for example, they will be able to come up with cheaper and slimmer products while offering more applications," said Hwang who leads the firm’s semiconductor unit.

Flex-OneNand combines two memories and product manufacturers can adjust their capacity through dedicated software. Previously chip memories were either embedded or external.

This is expected to sharply increase data throughput speeds and reduce the prices of handsets, portable game consoles and media players.

"We are poised to roll out the Flex-OneNand in the second quarter of this year. Already big-name companies are ready to incorporate the item into their products," Hwang said.

"Down the road, more advanced features will debut on the back of fusion memories including Flex-OneNand," the researcher-turned-chief executive said.

Alongside the chips, Samsung also unveiled gigabyte solid-state disks and 8.4-million pixel CMOS image sensors at the forum.

Hwang projected that fusion memories will become a mainstream component for portable consumer gadgets.

"With the advent of the convergence era that blurs boundaries among conventional industries, we face the need to produce fusion chips encompassing as many applications as possible," Hwang said.

"In the end, mobile handsets will be composed of just three parts: a display, battery and chip that includes memory, flash card and logic functions," he said.

Hwang said Samsung aims to chalk up $10 billion in sales over the next five years from fusion chips alone, which he said are ready for prime time.

Asked about the impact of the fusion chips, Hwang refused to make specific comments because Samsung’s customers are now developing customized products.