Items tagged with flash memory
In a surprise move, Western Digital is splitting its hard disk drive (HDD) and flash memory storage businesses into separate companies, effectively spinning off its solid state drive (SSD) division. The move comes around the eight-year anniversary of when Western Digital announced plans to acquire SanDisk for $19...
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It was around 10 months ago when SK hynix announced the development of 238-layer triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory, which it markets as "4D" technology, and now it has entered the mass production phase. In doing so, SK hynix paves the way for faster and potentially cheaper solid state drives (SSDs) and...
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Kioxia showed off an array of new technologies and high-performance solid-state storage products, some with fresh form factors, at this year's CES. Some of the products the company highlighted at CES 2023 include its scalable BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory technology solutions, including XL-FLASH and its 4-bit per cell, or quad-level-cell (QLC)
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Samsung on Monday announced it has begun mass producing its 8th generation vertical NAND (V-NAND) memory chips in 1-terabit (Tb) triple-level cell (TLC) form. Billed as the industry's highest bit density, Samsung's newest V-NAND solution boasts the highest storage capacity to day to drive more capacious solid state...
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As prices for PC memory kits and solid state drives (SSDs) continue to fall, NAND flash and memory chip makers are initiating what TrendForce has deemed a "rare production reduction." These are significant scale backs—Micron last month announced a "nearly 50 percent wafer fab equipment capex cut" compared to last...
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A company called Kioxia (spun out of Toshiba) has developed an interesting technology that could potentially pave a path beyond today's quad-level cell (QLC) NAND flash memory chips, into the next-generation of penta-level cell (PLC) parts. It's a breakthrough of sorts, in that it's the world's first three-dimensional...
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Anyone who has been paying attention will have noticed that solid state drive prices have come down over the few months, and the year as a whole. It is now relatively affordable to buy a 512GB or even 1TB SSD, especially if you catch one on sale. Well, things may be getting even better for consumers. There is an...
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Memory chip maker Hynix continues to make impressive (and fast) strides in the field of NAND flash memory. Having launched 36-layer 128-gigabit (Gb) three-dimensional (3D) NAND flash chips in April 2016 followed by mass production of 48-layer 256Gb 3D NAND chips just seven months later, the company is now touting the...
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Western Digital, a major player in the storage industry, announced this week that it has completed development of its next generation 3D NAND technology called BiCS3. Limited production is already underway in Japan with initial output expected later this year. If everything goes to plan, volume production will begin...
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At some point in time, solid state drives (SSDs) are likely to finally supplant mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) just as USB thumb sticks replaced floppies, but it won't happen until the cost of NAND flash memory drops even further, paving the way for parity in terms of price-per-gigabyte. It may even happen sooner...
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SanDisk has announced the release of third-generation Fusion ioDrive PCIe and Mezzanine flash cards, in doing so marking the first integration of SanDisk NAND flash and Virtual Storage Layer (VSL) software into the ioMemory product line since the company acquired Fusion-io in June 2014 for $1.1 billion.
Flash...
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Mars rover Opportunity is in the news again, this time for suffering a spell of "brief amnesia" related to its 256MB flash memory just five (5) days after a full reformatting of its memory banks. No scientific data was lost as a result of the blip in the device's nonvolatile memory, though, and the rover continued its...
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Toshiba and SanDisk announced the joint development of what they claim is the world's first 48-layer three dimensional stacked cell structure flash memory, otherwise known as BiCS (Bit Cost Scalable), a 2-bit-per-cell 128-gigabit (16 gigabytes) device. Put another way, BiCS is essentially Toshiba's version of the 3D...
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Two well known players in the flash storage business are about to become one. In somewhat of a surprise move, SanDisk inked an agreement to acquire Fuision-io in a deal that's worth about $1.1 billion. It's an all-cash offer of $11.25 per share, which is about 21 percent higher than Fusion-io's closing price on June...
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Micron said it's begun sampling next-generation 16-nanometer processing technology, enabling the industry's smallest 128-gigabit multi-level-cell NAND flash memory devices. This isn't just a big achievement in the flash industry, but it's also the most advanced processing node for any sampling semiconductor device...
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Samsung this week announced that it has begun mass producing a 128-gigabit (Gb), 3-bit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chip using a 10nm-class process technology, which equates to somewhere between 10nm and 20nm. These chips will lead to high-density memory solutions such as embedded NAND storage and solid...
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SanDisk announced a fast new memory card designed for smartphones and tablets. The new SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDHC UHS-I card offers up to 95MB/sec read and up to 90MB/sec write speeds. SanDisk claims this is the world's fastest mobile memory card. The card has a UHS Speed Class 1 rating (Class 10 equivalent). The...
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SandForce announced that it will be demonstrating its SF-2000 series SSD processors with Toshiba’s 24nm MLC NAND flash at the Flash Memory Summit 2011 in Santa Clara, CA this week. The two companies are working closely to improve the quality and performance of NAND flash as well as drive down costs. The marriage...
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You know what the greatest thing about owning a USB 3.0 thumb drive is? You get to point at all your USB 2.0 toting friends and laugh. So maybe that wouldn't be very nice, which leads us to the second best thing about a SuperSpeed drive: the transfer rates! Corsair today gave its Flash Voyager USB 3.0 thumb drive the green light to land on...
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It's not quite infinity and beyond, but Corsair did take its Flash Voyager USB memory stick as high as it can currently go, which is USB 3.0. The new SuperSpeed models sport the same rubberized mold as previous Voyager USB sticks, only now they're potentially much faster, assuming your system has a USB 3.0 port. Otherwise, the retooled Voyagers...
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Sony isn't the only company making noise with new camcorders. Canon expanded its VIXIA lineup with a new model that features 64GB of internal flash memory and an expansion slot that supports the SDXC format. The new VIXIA HF M32 Dual Flash Memory camcorder can record up to 24 hours of high definition video on its internal storage. The VIXIA...
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Most of us don't back up our data as often as we should. In an effort to help make data backups less of a chore, EZPnP Technologies recently announced the new EZDigiMagic DM110 series of portable backup burners. These burners are designed to give you one-touch backup from flash memory cards or a PC to optical discs...
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