flash memory
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Intel sells its NAND flash memory business to SK Hynix for $9 billion
Intel sold off its NAND flash memory business to South Korea's SK Hynix, but will retain control of the faster Optane technology.
Tariffs hit Apple and other tech companies tomorrow
Some of the tech you like is about to get more expensive -- at least for the companies that design them, if not you. True to earlier plans, the Trump administration has formally enacted a new round of tariffs against China-made products that will take effect September 1st. The measures will hit tech companies with 15 percent tariffs on a range of goods, with Apple potentially feeling the pinch harder than most. The hikes will affect AirPods, the Apple Watch, some Beats earphones, the HomePod and iMacs.
You'll soon get 10TB SSDs thanks to new memory tech
SSDs and other flash memory devices will soon get cheaper and larger thanks to big announcements from Toshiba and Intel. Both companies revealed new "3D NAND" memory chips that are stacked in layers to pack in more data, unlike single-plane chips currently used. Toshiba said that it's created the world's first 48-layer NAND, yielding a 16GB chip with boosted speeds and reliability. The Japanese company invented flash memory in the first place and has the smallest NAND cells in the world at 15nm. Toshiba is now giving manufacturers engineering samples, but products using the new chips won't arrive for another year or so.
Macronix plans to heat up flash memory to keep it from burning out
Despite the looming threat of being replaced by phase-change memory, contemporary memory modules aren't quite ready to be shown the door -- engineers at Macronix have found a way to revive spent NAND flash cells. Most flash modules fail after being written to and erased about 10,000 times, but Macronix found that the tired memory could be restored by baking it for extended periods of time. The team funneled the time consuming and cumbersome solution into a more practical package: a redesigned memory chip that packs onboard heaters. The new modules are designed to periodically heat focused groups of memory cells to 800 °C (1,472 °F) for a few milliseconds, effectively "healing" worn cells. Researchers found that heated chips could tolerate more than 100 million write/erase cycles and erased faster at higher temperatures. The team said the power drain of the heaters shouldn't effect battery life, either -- chips don't have to be heated often, and when they do, it can be done while prospective devices are recharging. Macronix will be presenting the technology at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting next week, but project deputy director Hans-Ting Lue wouldn't say when the company plans on taking the technology to market. Lue was willing to speculate on what might become of it, however. "This may evolve into a 'thermally assisted' mode of operation that gives both better performance -- such as the faster erasing -- and better endurance flash memory." Faster, more reliable, super-heated memory. Sounds fine by us. [Image credit: Emily Cooper, IEEE]
Samsung creates F2FS file system for NAND flash storage, submits it to the Linux kernel
Has the lack of NAND flash storage-optimized file systems been bugging you? Then you've got something in common with Samsung, which has developed F2FS (or "Flash-Friendly File-System") for the memory of choice for mobile devices and its specific "internal geometry." It's based on a log-structured method, but tackles problems associated with older file systems intended mainly for retro, spinning-disk storage. The company isn't keeping its hard work behind lock-and-patent either -- it's gone open-source and submitted the file system to the Linux kernel, meaning you could see it implemented in Android hardware of the future. It's nice to see Sammy contributing code for the greater good, and if you've got the skills to understand it, a low-down of F2FS is available at the source below.
Nintendo Wii U expandable memory explained, TiVO hardware not built in
The Nintendo Wii U may only have 8 to 32GB of internal memory, but the company's taking a decidedly open approach to expanding that memory: add your own. "You can plug in a full-on three terabyte hard drive if you want. I'll love you as a digital consumer," Nintendo America CEO and president Reggie Fils-Aime told us during a post-press conference investor Q&A. Much like Sony's PlayStation 3, the Wii U allows for expansion of memory via USB, whether that memory be Flash or otherwise. Fils-Aime explained that, with the continuously dropping price of memory, there was little reason to offer pricing for the Wii U -- available in $300 and $350 -- tied to an evolving hardware model. "The reason we did it that way is that the cost of that type of storage memory is plummeting. What we didn't want to do is tie a profit model to something that's gonna rapidly decline over time. We'll let the consumer buy as much as they want, as cheaply as they want," Fils-Aime said. Fils-Aime also confirmed that the Wii U doesn't have TiVO hardware built into it -- functionality will require an existing TiVO box. The same goes for DVR functionality, which Fils-Aime said Nintendo doesn't want consumers to bear the expense of.
Fujitsu and Acacia resolve patent disputes with settlement, keep it out of the courts
Fujitsu's bank balance may be a little lighter today, since Acacia Research Corp. has reported that subsidiaries of both companies have signed a settlement deal over patent disputes. As usual, Acacia is keeping tight-lipped about exactly what the patents cover, but a little digging on our part has revealed they are related to flash memory and RAM technologies. The agreement resolves lawsuits in the works at district courts in Texas and California, which is probably a good thing. After all, these cases can get pretty messy when they go to court.
Samsung starts mass-producing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets
Samsung isn't content to leave fast NAND flash memory to traditional solid-state drives. Its Pro Class 1500 promises a big jolt to the performance of frequently pokey smartphone and tablet storage. By how much? That name is a clue -- it reaches 1,500 IOPS (inputs/outputs per second) when writing data, which along with 3,500 IOPS data reads is about four times faster than any previous embedded flash chip Samsung has tested. In the real world, that leads to as much as 140MB/s when reading data and 50MB/s for writes. The speed comes after Samsung has thrown virtually every trick in the book at its new chips, including a dense 20-nanometer manufacturing process, quick toggle DDR 2.0 memory with its own controller and a new JEDEC memory standard with 200MB/s of bandwidth to spare. Samsung hasn't named customers for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB parts that are rolling out of the factories, although we'd do well to remember that a flourishing phone business doesn't guarantee that the only major customer is Samsung itself: even in the face of legal challenges, Samsung still has at least one noteworthy client that tends to snap up much of its flash supply.
Lexar XQD memory cards announced, will duel with Sony for Nikon D4's attention
Nikon's D4 is currently the only belle at the XQD ball, and until now, Sony was its only memory suitor. However, Lexar's just arrived with a new line of cards to compete for the D4's affections. The Fremont-based company says it collaborated with Nikon to build the PCI Express-based memory, and that they'll hit the market sometime in the third quarter of 2012 -- with no mention of specs or prices so far. Unfortunately, that means we don't know how Lexar's offerings will stack up against Sony's H-series or S-series cards already on the market. That said, while you wait for more details about Lexar's new cards, feel free to check out the lovely data the D4 will be putting on 'em when they arrive.
Sony S-Series XQD memory cards hit speed record at 168MB/s, starting at $500 for 32GB in Japan
Sony's new S-Series XQD memory cards will be the fastest you can buy when they arrive on the Japanese market July 11th, with a transfer speed of 168MB/s -- a boon if you're shooting continuous raw photos or high data rate HD video. The company claims that you'll need a Thunderbolt connection on your computer to take advantage of all that speed, which comes via the PCI Express Gen interface used for the memory cards. The 32GB and 64GB models will also have plenty of space to put all that media, but you'll need to pay for the privilege, to the tune of $503 and $754, respectively. Of course, those prices may not be an issue if you've already plonked down the coin for one of the few devices that support them.
Seagate and DensBits team up on solid-state drives for the home, call truce in the HDD versus SSD war
It's an understatement to say that Seagate started off on the wrong foot in its attitude towards solid-state drives: the company only slowly came around to embracing flash memory, and then mostly for the enterprise crowd and hybrid drive lovers. A newly-struck partnership between Seagate and controller maker DensBits is signalling a more serious attempt to offer SSDs to everyday users. Along with catering to the business folk, Seagate wants its new teammate's help on building "low-cost, high-performance" consumer SSDs. Most of the drives for the plebeians will use slower but denser 3-bits-per-cell memory made on a process under 20 nanometers, while the suits will get faster 2-bits-per-cell flash for their servers. The deal doesn't have any timetable attached, although Seagate's decision to pour equity cash into DensBits suggests it's not just a one-time fling.
Chuo University builds hybrid NAND-ReRAM unit that's faster than a speeding SSD
A team from Chuo University in Japan has developed a hybrid SSD that's reportedly 11 times faster than your average solid state unit. Combining NAND Flash with ReRAM, the magical union consumes 93 percent less power and lasts nearly seven times as long as pure-NAND products. Despite the high cost of ReRAM, it enables data centers to save on continuously replacing worn-out SSDs, and could see rapid adoption if worked into a commercial system. Their findings are being shown off at the Hawaii Symposium on VSLI Circuits this week -- after which, the team can reasonably expect to spend some time on the beach.
Toshiba Storage Products' THNSNF SSDs tap into 19nm process technology
32 nanometer process technology feels so... 2009. These days, Toshiba Storage Products is pushing something quite a bit smaller, as the outfit's new THNSNF solid state drives are said to be the world's first to take advantage of 19nm process NAND flash memory. 2012 just so happens to mark the 25th anniversary of Tosh's meddling in NAND, and the new series will be carrying the torch into even more bantam devices. Slates, Ultrabooks and perhaps a phablet or two may end up sporting on of these drives, replete with MLC (multi-level cell) flash. We're told that a trio of sizes will ship: there's a 9.5mm height edition, a 7mm version and an mSATA variant, all of which operate with a SATA 6Gbps interface. Power utilization is pegged at less than 0.1W, and mass production is expected to begin in August; mum's the word on partner companies implementing these into new products, but we're guessing the holiday season will be full of 'em.
Researchers develop silicon ReRAM chip, send warning shot to Flash memory
Does the word ReRAM ring a bell? No? Well, the key point is that it's much faster than NAND memory, and it's making its way into chips from Elpida, Sharp and Panasonic. Further proof that ReRAM is on the up and up? Researchers at University College London have used this technology to make a chip that operates at 100 times the speed of standard Flash memory. The device is composed completely of silicon oxide, which improves the chip's resistance, and it doesn't require a vacuum to work (which makes it cheaper to produce). But this new chip is more than just a faster alternative to Flash; its ability to move between different states of conductivity means it can be configured as a memristor, or a device that handles both data-processing and storage tasks. In the long term, researchers hope this technology can pave the way for silicon oxide CPUs -- and UCL is already using this design to help develop transparent memory chips for mobile devices. Need to know more? Feast your heart on the gritty details via the link below.
Fusion-io SDK gives developers native memory access, keys to the NAND realm
Thought your SATA SSD chugged along real nice? Think again. Fusion-io has just released an SDK that will allow developers to bypass all the speed draining bottlenecks that rob NAND memory of its true potential (i.e. the kernel block I/O layer,) and tap directly into the memory itself. In fact, Fusion-io is so confident of its products abilities, it prefers to call them ioMemory Application Accelerators, rather than SSDs. The SDK allows developers native access to the ioMemory, meaning applications can benefit from the kind of hardware integration you might get from a proprietary platform. The principle has already been demonstrated earlier this year, when Fusion-io delivered one billion IOPS using this native access. The libraries and APIs are available now to registered members of its developer program, hit the more coverage link to sign up.
Fox, Warner, SanDisk and Western Digital's Project Phenix: promotes DRM, misspelling
Studios Fox and Warner Bros. have teamed up with SanDisk and Western Digital to create "Project Phenix." Beneath the orthographically offensive name, it's pitched as DRM that'll permit you to organize, move and watch high-definition content on more than one device. It's the brainchild of the Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA), which has ensured compatibility with UltraViolet, so that users will be able to download cloud-based media to compliant WD and SanDisk storage -- to play on any alliance-approved TVs, tablets and display devices. We'll see the technology available to license later in the year, which promises to render content ten times faster than streaming media on "over the top internet" (translation: streaming services). Yes, there's PR after the break, but we'd only suggest taking a look if you've got a good pair of waders.
SanDisk makes 128-gigabit flash chip, crams three bits per cell, takes afternoon off
SanDisk has developed a chip that earns it membership in the exclusive 128-gigabit club. Not content with simply matching the Micron / Intel effort, SanDisk and its partner Toshiba claim their new memory uses 19- rather than 20-nanometer cells in the production process. Shrinking the size is one thing, but SanDisk's new chips also use its X3 / three-bit technology. Most memory stores just two bits per cell; cramming in another means fewer cells, less silicon, more savings, cheaper memory, happier geeks. Analyst Jim Handy estimates that the price per gigabyte for the tri-bit breed of flash could be as low as 28 cents, compared to 35 for the Micron / Intel equivalent. Full details in the not-so-compact press release after the break.
Samsung aggressively aggregating acronyms as eMCP assembly activated
Samsung's started foundries rolling for its new embedded multi-chip package memory for budget smartphones -- after the success of the high-end modules that were released in October. eMCP jams together 30-nanometer low-power DDR2 DRAM and 20-nanometer NAND flash memory into a single slice of silicon. In real terms, this means that there's a 4GB e-MMC (embedded MultiMediaCard) flash chip with a 256MB, 512MB or 768MB DDR2 DRAM module bolted on the side. According to the company, it'll consume 25 percent less power with 30 percent better performance, cost less to jam into your telephone and probably make you smell better, too. If you're starting your own phone company, or just curious about embedded systems, head past the break for the PR.
Sony flashes new XQD memory cards, your pre-ordered Nikon D4 smiles coyly
We've been eagerly awaiting some of that next-gen XQD memory since it was announced right around a month ago, and now that we have something worthy to pop it in, we're doubly buzzed. Sony's the first to step forward, kicking off with QDH16 ($129) and QDH32 ($229) cards where the number represents the capacity. When the specs first came out of the darkroom there was talk of 5Gb/s write speeds; these might not be quite that rapid, but at 1Gb/s (125 MB/s), we're still not complaining. Sony thinks the cards will be good for up to 100 frames in RAW format in continuous shooting mode, based on its tests. There'll also be a card reader and adapter for easy portability, both setting you back a further $45 when the whole lot hits the shelves in February. Click the PR after the jump for more info.
Apple buys flash storage maker Anobit for $500 million, aims to establish R&D lab in Israel
The rumor mill has been churning on this one for the last few days, but it's now as official as it's ever apt to get: Apple has decided to splash out the $500 million to buy Israeli flash-chip outfit Anobit. The fabless designer of MLC NAND flash chips should be a good fit, given Cupertino's reliance on solid state storage technology for its iPad, iPod, iPhone and Macbook Air lines. With $84 billion in the bank, the purchase has cost the company just over half a percent of its war chest, and we're guessing it'll just barely feel the pinch when said funds are transferred over. The story was originally reported in the Calcalist financial daily newspaper, with the verified Twitter account of the Prime Minister of Israel chiming in with the following: "Welcome to Israel, Apple Inc. on your [first] acquisition here. I'm certain that you'll benefit from the fruit of the Israeli knowledge." Moreover, Apple's expected to open up a research and development center in the nation, marking its first outside of the USA. If history has anything to say about it, we highly doubt Apple will ever open its mouth one way or the other on this, but it'll be interesting to see what related nuggets are uncovered in the company's next quarterly filing with the SEC.
