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NGP features two proprietary card slots for memory storage, games
The NGP's memory storage capabilities are puzzlingly absent from the hardware specifications released by Sony today. During the PlayStation Meeting 2011 press conference, the company briefly introduced a "new game media" format, a flash memory-based card on which retail titles will be sold (replacing the clunky, power-sucking UMD). These SD-looking game cards -- said to be proprietary -- will feature extra storage for relevant data, including games saves and add-ons. "NGP adopts a new game medium, a small flash memory based card, dedicated for NGP software titles," a Sony press release later confirmed. "Taking advantage of the flash memory feature, this innovative card can store the full software titles plus add-on game content or the game save data directly on to the card. By adopting flash memory based card, SCE will be able to provide game cards with higher capacity in the future, allowing developers to store more game data to deliver rich and immersive games." But where will users store non-game data? The NGP's LiveArea UI suggests that multimedia applications will be integral to the handheld, and many of these apps will obviously require data storage -- not to mention the storage requirements for downloadable games. While Sony has not mentioned an internal flash memory component of the NGP, SCE Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida revealed to Game Informer that the device will feature "two slots" for memory cards; one for the new game card format (which Yoshida confirmed would be proprietary -- not SD) and a second port for additional storage. Whether the additional slot has been designed for Sony's existing proprietary Memory Stick (the "Micro" version is used for PSP Go memory expansion) has not been specified. "At this point, all we're saying is it is proprietary storage capabilities," SCEA boss Jack Tretton told Engadget, "we're not getting into defining what it is yet." [Update: In an interview with GameSpot, Yoshida said that the secondary slot is for "the media card that we are developing" (in addition to the game card), suggesting that NGP might use a proprietary media card other than an existing Memory Stick format.]
Scientists build double-floating-gate FET, believe it could revolutionize computer memory
Look, we get it, you want DRAM that behaves like flash, flash that behaves like DRAM, and everything in between -- speedy computer memory that doesn't lose its data when the power goes off, and lasts for years on end. Well, it looks there's a new challenger about to enter that ring -- double floating-gate field effect transistors, currently in prototype form at North Carolina State University. Whereas the single floating-gate variety is currently responsible for the flash memory in your USB keys and SSDs, the second floating gate lets bits of data stay in an active, ready state, but the computer can also apply a higher voltage to "freeze" them in place. Since the memory can switch between static and dynamic modes in a single cycle and the data never disappears in between, researchers imagine the new tech could lead to instant-on computers and power-saving techniques that shut down idle memory banks. That's the consumer take, at least -- find the technical deep dive at our more coverage link.
Kingston launches USB 3.0 roadmap, SDHC UHS-I UltimateXX card
The SD Association took the opportunity to introduce the UHS-II standard here at CES, but Kingston's doing its best to just make the most of the protocols that are available in the here and now. The outfit has just introduced its latest range of SDHC cards, the USH-I UltimateXX, which is set to ship later this month and be perfectly backwards compatible with Class 4, 6 and 10 equipment. We're told that it'll hit read rates of 60MB/sec and write rates of 35MB/sec, with pricing set for $69.99 (8GB), $179.99 (16GB) and $349.99 (32GB). In related news, the outfit's also launching its DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 USB flash drive, and it has plans to launch an entry-level flash drive in "late Q2 / early Q3." Head on past the break for the full skinny.
SD Association triples SDHC and SDXC speeds with UHS-II standard, adds secure eBook specification
Don't ever knock the SD Association for lagging behind. A scant seven months after the aforesaid entity revealed the UHS-I specifications, in flies the predicted successor at CES. UHS-II is a newfangled bus-interface system that promises high-def recording speeds of up to 312 megabytes per second, enabling pro shooters and videographers to actually consider an SDHC or SDXC-based camera rather than relying solely on CompactFlash or SSD. The protocol will be an integral part of the SD 4.00 specification that's going out to members later in the quarter, and naturally, it'll only be useful to SDXC and SDHC cards. We're looking at a 3x increase in transfer rates, and these same upticks will be gracing UHS-II microSDXC and microSDHC cards, too. Best of all, UHS-II cards will be fully backwards compatible with older devices and readers, as the speed increase simply relies on a new row of pins on a familiar form factor. In related news, a new eBook SD application has been announced, though the details surrounding it are murky at best. So far as we can tell, eBook SD cards will have their content pretty well contained, giving publishers the ability to rest easy while still getting content out to the myriad products that can understand SD. Peek the full release after the break. %Gallery-112383%
Lexar unveils 32GB Class 10 microSDHC card, quick-fingered Android users celebrate
Lexar. It's Where Memory Matters. And it's also the only game in town to introduce a Class 10 microSDHC card. For those currently using an Android phone with a user-accessible microSD slot, you've probably gritted your teeth on a number of occasions waiting for your current Class 2 or Class 4 card to catch up with your demands. It's one of the downfalls to removable storage, but thankfully, the device you see above looks to us like a glistening solution. The 32GB Class 10 microSDHC card promises a minimum sustained write speed of 10MB per second and a read speed of nearly 20MB per second, which should all but eliminate any lag from loading up your favorite playlist. Lexar plans on shipping this guy with preloaded software to manage and sync stored images and videos, and speaking of shipping, it should be available right now on Amazon for $149.99.
IBM makes racetrack memory breakthrough, which could come in handy someday
If you can't tell your DRAM from your STT-MRAM, you'll need to bear with us for a sec: IBM's figured out the math required to read and write data from the spaces between magnetic fields, racing across a nanowire, at hundreds of miles per hour. IBM's been plugging away at the so-called racetrack memory since 2004, calling it the perfect hybrid of magnetic storage and flash, but until recently scientists didn't know whether the magnetic domain walls (where data will live) had any mass to speak of. As it turns out, they do, and thus have to obey the tiresome laws of physics as they move along the nanowire "track," but also accelerate and decelerate the exact same amount, more or less canceling out the effect. Long story short, IBM can use this knowledge to precisely position those 1s and 0s in their newfound data bank, and someday we'll all reap the benefits of dense, speedy and reliable memory. You know, assuming PRAM, FeRAM, and ReRAM don't eat IBM's lunch. PR after the break.
Patriot intros Supersonic USB 3.0 flash drive, milks 100MB / sec from a single chip
At present, there seem to be three strategies to embracing the potential of USB 3.0 -- go all out with an external SSD, introduce a hulking RAID-on-a-stick, or settle for a single-chip USB key with ho-hum maximum read/write speeds of roughly around 80MB / sec and 60MB / sec. There are a number of these barely-better-than-USB-2.0 flash drives floating about, but Patriot decided not to settle for that -- its new Supersonic flash drive uses the mythical "quad channel" technology (and a native USB 3.0 controller) to eke out some extra speed. That allows Patriot to beat down the USB 2.0 straw man with 70MB / sec writes and 100MB / sec reads, and possibly justify a pricing premium if the company can't manufacture them on the cheap. If the Supersonic sounds like the best of all worlds for your portable data, you'll find it in 32GB and 64GB configurations starting Q1 2011. No word on price quite yet.
Micron embeds error correction in flash memory chips, calls it ClearNAND
Solid state storage is fantastic stuff, durable and lightning-quick, but it's got its fair share of quirks -- bits fail, pages fill up, and cells deteriorate over time. Typically, the onus is on a beefy controller to take care of your drive and make sure it lasts a good long while (which is why brand names like SandForce can make or break an SSD) but it looks like Micron is planning to usurp some of that responsibility with its new ClearNAND chips. Simply put, each ClearNAND memory module has a built-in 24-bit error correction engine, so your drive's host controller doesn't have to shoulder that load, and can focus on the good stuff -- like getting your data delivered at speeds that would obliterate traditional hard drives. Micron says the new chips are available right now in 25nm sizes. Want a more technical rundown? Hit up our more coverage link to hear what this might mean for the error-prone future of the medium. PR after the break.
Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 USB 3.0 SSD reviewed, hits ludicrous speeds
We've all seen the scene in some movie or another: secret agent infiltrates the enemy stronghold, sneaks into the server room, then fights off bad guy after bad guy while an agonizingly slow progress bar ticks across the screen, super-secret egg salad recipe files taking ages to copy. If only they had a Kingston HyperX Max USB 3.0 external drive they could have escaped without needing that big final fight scene. The drive was recently tested by PC Perspective and found to feature solid construction and performance, offering the highest sequential write speeds the site had ever seen thanks to a Toshiba HG2 controller coupled with 128GB of Toshiba flash and 128MB of DDR cache memory. And, at $280 for a 128GB model, it's even somewhat reasonably priced -- well, for an external USB 3.0 SSD, anyway.
Toshiba introduces MacBook Air-type solid-state drives
One of the key elements that allowed Apple to make the new MacBook Air so slim was the elimination of traditional drive packaging for the solid-state drive (SSD). Rather than installing the flash memory in a case that could be installed in place of a spinning drive, the SSD looks like an old-school DRAM stick with exposed chips and the interface contacts along one end. Toshiba is now offering these blade-type SSDs in the aftermarket in the same 64, 128, and 256GB sizes found in the 11- and 13-inch Airs. They even have the same part number as the originals, indicating that Toshiba may be the OEM supplier. Apple has designed the Air to try and prevent end-user serviceability, but if you can find a five-point Torx screwdriver, you can perform a drive upgrade. It's not yet known if the 256GB drive will fit into the 11-inch Air (a combination not offered by Apple) since the largest stick is marginally thicker than the other two parts. There's no word on pricing or availability, but it seems likely that we'll soon see computers from other manufacturers using these parts as well. In the meantime, PhotoFast has also produced a SSD upgrade kit for the MacBook Air that boosts internal storage to 256GB and turns the machine's original 64GB drive into a USB 3.0 device.
Toshiba rolls out Blade X-gale SSD modules, makes MacBook Air storage look a little less proprietary
One of the most impressive aspects of Apple's recent MacBook Air redesign was undeniably the shift to ultrathin flash storage modules that could cram your gigabytes of data into picoliters of space. Needless to say, that's the sort of storage we could all do with in our lives and today Toshiba's doing us a solid by introducing its Blade X-gale SSD line to the wider world. It's basically the same stuff as in the Airs, sans Apple's bombastic marketing, and while the new SSD modules are not yet readily available to buy by consumers (who wouldn't have anywhere to put them in their laptops anyhow), system integrators are all free to start building around them as of today. The 64GB and 128GB modules are only 2.2mm tall, while the double-stacked 256GB option is 3.7mm in height, and all three can reach speeds of 220MBps while reading or 180MBps when writing. Full PR after the break.
Transcend issues four new CFast 500 memory cards, promises 108MB/sec transfer rates
February 2010 has come and gone, and we're still not seeing a heck of a lot of traction with regard to CFast. Hailed as the next major leap in the CompactFlash standard, CFast cards rely on the SATA interface versus UDMA / IDE, with Transcend's latest expected to boast transfer rates of 108MB/sec. As with other CFast cards, these too are shaped exactly like existing CompactFlash units, and while it seems as if the company is pushing these towards enterprise and industrial applications right now, it's just a matter of time before they make the jaunt to your local camera shop. Expect four sizes (2/4/8/16GB) to pop up in the next few months, and feel free to let your imagination run wild with respect to prices.
MacBook Air upgrade kit bumps capacity to 256GB, turns old module into USB 3.0 SSD
Sure, the only remotely user-replaceable component on the 11.6-inch MacBook Air are those tiny Toshiba SSDs, but PhotoFast's got what might be one of the most elegant upgrade solutions we've ever seen. The Air USB 3 Adapter gives you not only a brand-spanking-new 256GB module with a Sandforce SF-1200 controller, but a speedy USB 3.0 flash drive too -- which smartly doubles as the mechanism by which you move your old files over, as you can just transfer everything through the USB port. Once you're done swapping modules, the company says you'll see a 30 percent speed boost over the original drive, with reported transfer rates of 250MB/s on both sequential reads and writes. Shame the Japanese company didn't specify any sort of estimated release date or price.
IPad is affecting the hard drive industry, but MacBook Air could deal a fatal blow
A piece of news that got brushed aside for a bit yesterday due to the "Back to the Mac" event, Western Digital chief executive John Coyne said that the company has taken a hit due to the iPad's popularity. The result is a 10 to 20 percent drop in shipments of hard drives for low-end netbooks and laptops over the next few quarters, he said. Granted, Coyne is probably popping antacids after yesterday's MacBook Air announcement. With up to 256GB of flash storage on the logic board, Apple is definitely making the point that the future of storage for laptops, netbooks and tablets is not a disk-based hard drive. What will save the hard drive industry at the moment? Coyne urged investors to look at long-term storage solutions, where the disk-based hard drive reigns supreme ... that is unless Apple comes out with a flash memory-based Time Capsule. [Via AppleInsider]
Iomega serves up adorable 1.8-inch External USB 3.0 SSD pocket drives
Some might say that you have somewhat of a problem when calling a solid state drive "cute," but what do they know, anyway? Iomega's newest batch of external SSDs are easily the most adorable we've seen, as these 1.8-inchers can just about slip into any oversized Fifth Pocket that you may have. Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB sizes, the diminutive drives support USB 3.0 and are built to be lugged around and occasionally dropped, stepped on or used as a stress-relief tool. Specifically, the metal enclosure is engineered to handle drops from up to ten feet, and the 256-bit hardware encryption ensures that only you and your cronies will see what's inside. The company's also tossing in its Protection Suite (loaded with anti-virus, cloning and backup applications), and it'll be hawking these in early November for $229, $399 and $749 from least capacious to most. Oh, and that noise you hear? A hundred million USB 3.0 flash drives getting all sorts of perturbed. %Gallery-105158%
SanDisk's 32GB microSDHC card falls below $100, is actually in stock
Holding out on upgrading that paltry 2GB microSD card that shipped in your Android device of choice? Hold no longer. Amazon is now stocking SanDisk's oh-so-capacious 32GB microSDHC card for just $89.73, which is notably lower than what it retailed for at launch. It's also readily available elsewhere on the web for around the same amount, with the "readily available" part equally as impressive as the "for really cheap" part. Of course, it's slower than molasses crawling uphill on a winter day (read: Class 2), but it's not like you'll be throwing this in your D3S and firing off 11 shots per second. Right?
Intel's 25nm solid state drives boast huge capacity, improved reliability, four times longer life?
Solid state storage is maturing rapidly, as you can see on this allegedly leaked slide, but AnandTech reports that the improvements aren't all about price per gigabyte -- the 25nm successor to Intel's X25-M G2 is shaping up to be one killer drive. In addition to increasing capacity to 600GB for a 2.5-incher and 300GB for a 1.8-inch size, the publication reports that the Postville Refresh will bring up to 40,000 IOPS in random 4K writes, and transfer larger sequential files with up-to-250MB/s reads and 170MB/s writes. To put that in context, they should be competitive with today's very best SandForce SF-1200 drives, and hopefully trounce them on price. More impressive (if true), however, is that these new Intel X25-M G3 units are built to last: they're reportedly able to transfer at least 30TB before they give up the ghost, and have a "power safe write cache" feature that may keep errant power outages from prematurely conking them out. We don't exactly expect OCZ, Corsair, Mushkin and Crucial to sit around while Intel revolutionizes the market, though -- even if Intel's 25nm plant only benefits Intel, smaller die sizes will help solid state storage companies across the board.
HP Labs teams up with Hynix to manufacture memristors, plans assault on flash memory in 2013
The memristor's come a long way since being hypothesized back in 1971. If you ask HP Labs, the history of this particular memory technology didn't hit its next milestone for almost four decades, when the company produced the very first memory resistor chip. Just last month, the Labs group proved its little transistor could handle logic and data storage, and as of today, the company's announcing a joint development agreement with Hynix Semiconductor, with a goal of bringing these chips to the market -- and rendering flash memory obsolete. That challenge against flash (not a very popular naming convention these days, it seems) was thrown down by HP Labs Senior Fellow Stan Williams, who posits that the memristor is "an universal memory that over a sufficient amount of time will replace flash, DRAM, magnetic hard disks, and possibly even SRAM." But onto the immediate, albeit aspirational goal (i.e. not a commitment, which he stressed on multiple occasions): Williams hopes to see the transistors in consumer products by this time 2013, for approximately the price of what flash memory will be selling for at the time but with "at least twice the bit capacity." He also claims a much smaller power requirement of "at least a factor of 10" and an even faster operation speed, in addition to previously-discussed advantages like read / write endurance. With Hynix on board, the goal is to make these "drop-in replacements" for flash memory, whereby the same protocols and even the same connectors will work just fine. For HP, however, Williams says there'll be an initial competitive advantage for the company due to its comfort level with memristors' unique properties, but that other companies will be encouraged to license the technology and experiment with new possibilities in hardware design. Williams wouldn't give any specific product examples where we might initially see the memristor, except to repeat that it'll be anywhere and everywhere flash memory is. Fighting words, indeed. We normally don't get excited about minute hardware components -- not often, at least -- but we gotta say, the seeds of the future look mighty interesting. Can't wait to see what germinates. Highlights from our talk with Williams after the break. %Gallery-100780%
Toshiba sends 24nm NAND flash memory chips into mass production
Let's take a moment to congratulate Toshiba on a fine feat of engineering. It was only last year that the company started shipping 32nm NAND flash memory, and yet today its factories are starting to churn out 24nm chips. Unsurprisingly, this comes with the boast of offering "the world's highest" density and capacity per single chip, an honor going to the 2 bits-per-cell 64Gb parts. That newfangled Toggle DDR transfer-acceleratin' technology is also supported, naturally, leaving us only to wonder who'll be picking up the earliest deliveries of these minuscule data stores.
Toshiba introduces 32nm DDR NAND with 133Mbps speeds, or MT/s if you prefer
It doesn't quite have the efficiency and capacity of this 25nm process, and it's not half as speedy as that planned 400Mbps, but Toshiba is moving up in the world with today's reveal of 32nm, 133Mbps toggle-mode DDR NAND. The new flash memory chips will go head to head with the similar 30nm toggle-mode NAND used in Samsung's 512GB SSD and the 166Mbps ONFi 2.1 chips that power Crucial's RealSSD C300 drive; each of the tiny black chips can store up to 32 gigabytes. Shame there's no word on when we'll see these speeding our PCs and iPods, nor any mention of price. PR after the break.
