Toshiba introduces ultra-dense 43nm SLC NAND flash chips
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 29th 2008 10:12AM
posted Oct 29th 2008 10:12AM
[Via Physorg]
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WHAT??? Gbits? I've heard Gibibyte, it's the non-confusable term for 1,073,741,824 bytes. But bits???
"A byte is a collection of bits, originally differing in size depending on the context but now almost always eight bits." -Wikipedia
So the biggest of those flash chips is 8 GIGABYTES?
According to their site:
"When used herein in relation to memory density, gigabit and/or Gbit or Gb means 1,024x1,024x1,024 = 1,073,741,824 bits. Usable capacity may be less. For details, please refer to specifications. "
Talk about confusing people when they write Gigabits as Gb...
What's a Gibibyte?
Yeah... I noticed that too, and had the same 'wtf?' reaction. I'm going to assume the author meant 'bytes' until I hear otherwise!
Nope, Memory chips are generally listed in bits, not bytes. These are SLC NAND, meaning they don't have the same density as slower NAND, but they are a lot faster. Also SSDs are compromised of multiple chips. These chips will take up less space and power.
Gibibyte = 1 billion bits I think.
oh nvm I was wrong.
Kilobit = 1000 bits
Megabit = 1000 kbits
Gigabit = 1000 mbits
To get the byte equivalent, divide by 8 (8 bits per byte). Gigabits are quite commonly used. The most notable example is in broadband internet marketing, so companies can advertise 20Mbps, and people think it means 20 Megabytes, but it's actually 2.5 Megabytes per second.
It's all how you capitalize it.
b = bits, B = bytes
Generally, GB = gigabytes and Gb = gigabits (note capitalisation). Of course, everyone applies their own rules liberally and this only serves to confuse matters.
Futher, the use of base-10 and base-2 for defining kilo/mega/giga also messes with your head. As blar tried to say (I think), solid state memory devices usually use base-2 units (ie 1kb = 1024 bits) whereas other things like network capacity are measured in base-10 (ie 1kb = 1000 bits). Network capacity also generally uses bits rather than bytes (ie. 54Mb/s = 54Mbps = 54 million bits per second) whereas memory more often uses bytes (as it 2GB = 2 giga bytes = 2 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes).
It is fairly confusing, but once you're used to it you won't get caught. And yes, the largest is 8GB.
hard drives, of course, always use the prefixes metrically so that you get 1 trillion bytes in a terabyte.
I've never seen bits being used for measuring storage, only for internet connections in form of Mbits/s or Mbps. I understand that this is just a chip and not something consumers buy in stores.
My only gripe is that Engadget assumes that everyone knows the difference of GB and Gb (if they noticed it themselves).
"My only gripe is that Engadget assumes that everyone knows the difference of GB and Gb (if they noticed it themselves)."
The use of lower case "b" for "Gb" and upper case for "GB" is universal among computer technology journals, articles, blogs, etc.
i can see a ipod touch 64GB and iphone 32GB coming in feburary, apple always tries to add products to their current lineups at the first of every year
the iphone/ipod touch both use 2 memory slots, and the largest here is 8 gigabytes.
The first solid-state memory chips I used (not "core" memory) was based on Intel IN-10 chips.
Each one of those expensive chips store 1,024 bits. That's right. 128 bytes.
So the big Tosh mem is 64 MILLION TIMES the solid-state storage that I first used in 1972.
Talk about confusing people when they write Gobobots as Gibibytes..
AHHH!! Too many numbers in my head!!!
Nibble me! byte me!, compress me! Unzip me!
I hate you guys...
@ Scotty Doo
I lol'd
Darren you're such a lazy ass. Why freaking write useless stuff like 16Gbs , the rest of the freaking planet deals in drive spaces buy using Giga bytes as the measure for common ppl. Why not just freaking write the chips will start ranging from 2giga bytes. Or are you just copy pasting from other sites without understanding a single word of that? Damn man, enhadget is going down everyday.