Intel and Micron start 25nm flash production; SSDs to get cheap, huge
By Nilay Patel 
posted January 30th 2010 2:40PM
posted January 30th 2010 2:40PM
posted January 30th 2010 2:40PM
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@Solidstate89
the larger and smaller than sign are used to define HTML syayements, for security reasons engadget simply strips plain larger than and smaller than signs and thus strips any HTML people insert.
There's unicode heart though ♥ but that requires people have a usable unicode font on their system, and although a large percentage do not everybody does.
And there's the ampersand method <3
statements*
Boy is that a lot of technical language
@yulebellow All I need to see is more memory for little dinero and I'm happy.
@yulebellow
While it may be cheaper for them to produce, I don't believe us (the consumers) will be seeing that same ratio of cost-savings roll over to our side of the mountain.
@yulebellow keep that 160GB below £100 in layman's terms and I'm in!
@forrealdood
We may not see quite the savings they are, but I would assume that after the first couple months, you'd see a drastic price drop. I would think (as an average consumer) that you would see a slight price spike to cover the costs of re tooling/R&D, and then after they've recouped some if not all of the cost, then the price will drop and become an (what I think is referred to as) economy of scale.
@BigJayDogg3
Do you really think companies pay off R&D during first month? It's almost always calculated for the life of product. If there is any initial spike in some products, then it's almost always due demand (there are crazy people who pay 2x more for Dell adamo right when it's released), it's never to try to cover R&D cost
@Jimbojones
They do try to cover their investment as fast as possible, but not within the first month. Usually it takes from 3-6 months. the rest productions, removing COGS, is more or less pure profit.
Demand and supply drives prices up and down when there is no drastic changes in the economies.
@yulebellow
SSDs are awesome.. the biggest game changing performance upgrade in like forever, they were worth their premium for the gains you got, but now everyone will soon get to join in.
/me takes off cpt. obvious hat :3.
@darkmax
COGS = cost of goods sold, for those who don't know.
Basically how much it costs to acquire an item, so you can then sell it.
@yulebellow
A tech geek without a decent technical understanding is just downright sad...
@Sam83 Yeah, its all about the price.. If they can make it subpart at 100-120 USD and we're all set.
And now guess what.. Intel's Clarkdale/arrandale are ready to roll out, this year. More Details: http://bit.ly/arrandale-clarkdale-indepth-details
hmmm... flash you say? .... don't do it people... DON'T
@Eugene Action
Calm down, It's SSD not Adobe :)
lolwut?
we were supposed to have cheap ssd's by now :( come on intel, hurry the hell up
@grumbles : Do you think intel's priority is make SSD's cheaper for consumers or continue the whole "remember when SSD was expensive" days and make tons of money.
@One Love
Why wouldn't they want to be able to sell them cheaper? They could sell more, and familiarize consumers with intel not only as a big name in chip manufacturing, but a big name in storage also.
@One Love SSDs are definitely something that manufacturers want to increase production of to benefit from economies of scale. They're currently a bit more expensive than back in August, probably due to Apple buying up all the stock of NAND flash. :/
I'll believe "cheap" when I see it.
I Agree, they will double the capacity, but mantain the same price, that's all.. so they will continue expensive ever all.
@Leindurstit
Or, you could think of it logically - it's twice the storage for the same money. Basically, a 50% price drop.
@Leindurstit
This is why we need manufacturer competition.
More competition = FTW for customers.
@paul34 But it's not actually cheaper if they don't make a model with the same capacity as the old one for half the price. In other words, it becomes a much better value for your money, but for those of us without enough money to spendthat much on storage, doubling the capacity but not cutting the price doesn't do any good whatsoever.
@paul34
but, you still have the large upfront cost,
show me a 512GB SSD for like $100.00 CDN, and im in... otherwise, i'll wait, and wait, and wait.
"25nm is something like twice the storage density per dollar"
Still a far shot from HDD prices then, but at least there is progress.
So when are 25nm processors coming along?
@Nitesh LOL never; The next step after 32nm for processors is 22nm, not 25nm.
@TheSmartOne Whoops, that's what I meant. For Intel, at least, its second half of 2011, and with Bulldozer for AMD, also in 2011.
@Nitesh
I can't see Bulldozer being a 22nm part. If that's what you meant?
@jon Again, my bad. Bulldozer is going to be 32nm, as is Bobcat.
DO WANT, DO NEEEED!
20 atoms is pretty damn small.
@B3astofthe3ast
That's what she said
@v1001
In physics class.
@New Reformation
And she wasn't that pretty.
25nm is closer to 8x. Keep in mind that these values are linear, not cubic. Assuming that they're referring to the length of one side of the transistor, you're looking at 8x in volume, or if it only applies to area, it would be 4x (assuming 50nm previous)
@jol
The previous was 34nm. Moving from one technology node to the next delivers about twice the density.
I'm not too savvy with hard drives, are SSDs suppose to be more reliable?
@Plazmic Flame
They are MUCH faster and aren't based off of a spinning disk, so they work well in mobile devices like laptops. They are more reliable in the sense that they have far fewer moving parts that could fail, but the memory itself does eventually wear out after it has been written a certain number of times.
The font of all human knowledge, Wikipedia, should have more info if you are curious.
@Plazmic Flame
I don't know about reliable since flash memory is supposed to have a limited write life, but I know that since there aren't moving parts, they are more durable. They also produce less heat, are lighter, and can have faster reads/writes.
@Plazmic Flame
That's the only reason i am hesitant to go SSD. It has a much more limited write life than a spinning HDD.
@Plazmic Flame
SSD drives basically elimiate seek times, like when the disc in an HDD needs to spin up and the read head needs to find and read the data while the disc is spinning. SSDs just read it like RAM memory.
@questionexclamation With current day algorithms, it's something along of several years of CONSTANT writing and erasing to degrade the cells completely.
@questionexclamation
I think Intel ssd drives estimate 10,000 cycles a year with a 100,000 life, giving you 10 years. Right now they give you a 3 year warranty, which is standard for all hard-drives.
That life expectancy of 1.2 million hours (MTBF) is hoopla.
Put simply they are comparable to hard-drives in life expectancy, but at less risk, because of no moving parts.
10nm is only about 20atoms?? We're not _that_ far from the limit then or am I missing something?
@Schmich
Yeah, that's what i'm thinking as well, is this the end for Moore's law?
@(Unverified)
If SSDs will eventually contain maybe 512GB or 1TB and they are all in 2.5 inch format with this technology, then they can always scale horizontally and place more disk space in some 3.5 inch drives or more, I would't mind standard 3.5 inch SSDs with several TB.
@Schmich It may exhaust the limits of Moore's law using current technology, HOWEVA, new technology should begin to fill in the gaps. Back when we used vacuum tubes Moores law didnt seem to optimistic for continued success. Technology is only as good as we make it.
Anand gets all hot and bothered over new nand tech, but greater capacities won't make SSDs any more affordable than they are now. Intel will still keep the same hefty price points, only the gb/$ ratio won't be as bad as previous gen.
It takes competition on performance to drop prices down, like what happened with indillinx and soon hopefully sandforce. Give me the fastest drive possible with just enough capacity to use it for an OS instal (30-40gb) at under $100 and I will give you money.