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Applied double tunneling layer to realize 100 gigabit density.

TOKYO, Japan — Toshiba Corporation on Wednesday, Dec 12, announced that it has developed a new double tunneling layer technology applicable to future 10nm generation flash memories. This elemental technology opens the way for memory devices with densities of over 100 gigabits in the 10nm generation, which lies four generations ahead. The technology was today announced at the IEDM (International Electron Devices Meeting) held at Washington DC.

Toshiba developed a tunnel layer, which controls in and out of electron, in the SONOS (Silicon Oxide Nitride Oxide Semiconductor) type device structure, a memory structure that holds electrons in the nitride layer in the gate insulator.

The new structure sandwiches a 1.2 nm silicon nanocrystals layer between the 1nm thickness oxide films, achieving long-time data retention and high speed writing and data deletion at the same time, using the natural characteristic that resistance changes with changes in gate voltage. As the new tunnel layers are thinner than early version SONOS element tunnel layers, it is easier to migrate to advanced devices with finer lithography.

Toshiba also increased the saved electrons amount by changing the nitride film from Si3N4 to Si9N10, a material that contains more silicon, and optimized such aspects of the element structure as channel impurity concentration. The prototype has realized and maintained equivalent to over 10 years performance.

Toshiba is investigating various technologies for future advanced memories, including 3D structures, and believes that realizing operation in the 10nm generation with its new double tunneling layer technology is a step forward to future practical devices. More at Toshiba.

TOKYO, Japan — On Monday, Dec 10, Toshiba announced its entry into the emerging market for NAND-flash-based solid state drive (SSD) with a series of products featuring multilevel-cell NAND flash memories.

Offered in a range of form factors and densities, Toshiba’s solid state drives are designed primarily for notebook PCs. They will be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, from January 7th to 10th. Samples and mass production will follow from the first quarter (January to March) of next year.

Moving NAND-based storage architecture forward, Toshiba’s first solid state drives offer three densities: 32 gigabytes (GB), 64GB and 128GB. SSD realize low power consumption, a fast boot time, and lightweight, but market penetration has been held back by low densities and high prices.

Toshiba’s new SSD integrate an original MLC controller supporting fast read-write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling, and achieve performance levels comparable to those of single-level NAND flash SSD. By applying MLC technology, Toshiba has realized a 128GB density in a 1.8 inch form factor. Toshiba expects the launch of its SSD line-up to speed up acceptance of solid state memory in laptops and digital consumer products, and to widen the horizons of the NAND flash market.

The new products utilize NAND flash memory fabricated with 56nm process technology, along with controller chips and DRAM, on a 70.6mm (L) x 53.6mm (W) x 3.0mm (H) platform. The maximum read speed is 100MB a second, and the maximum write speed of 40MB a second with the SATA2 interface (transfer rate of 3Gbps), which is compliant with high speed serial interface. The operating life is 1,000,000 hours. More at Toshiba.

Microsoft Unlimited Potential Group has released a statement detailing the company’s efforts to expand flash-based Windows XP support in addition to Intel’s Classmate PC and ASUS’ Eee PC, as well as Microsoft’s plans to expand flash-based Windows XP support for low-cost hardware computing devices.

REDMOND, Wash — Dec 05, 2007 — As part of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential effort to bring the benefits of technology to the next 5 billion people by transforming education, fostering local innovation, and enabling jobs and opportunity, Microsoft today announced plans to further expand flash-based Windows XP support for low-cost hardware computing devices.

This builds on the success of similar support for devices such as Intel Corporation’s Classmate PC and ASUS’ Eee PC, complementing Unlimited Potential’s focus on transforming education in emerging segments.

As part of this commitment, Microsoft plans to publish formal design guidelines early next year that will assist flash-based device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience. In addition, there will be limited field trials in January 2008 of Windows XP for One Laptop per Child’s XO laptop. Microsoft’s goal is to provide a high-quality Windows experience on the XO device; if this is achieved, then Windows XP for the XO could be available as early as the second half of 2008.

Governments evaluating purchases of the XO should continue to consult with Microsoft regarding possible Windows XP availability date, pricing and support policies. In addition, there are no plans to offer a version of Windows that is compatible with the XO laptop for retail purchase in the U.S. and Canada.

Microsoft Unlimited Potential will continue to work with a variety of partners to support this emerging class of devices as part of its effort to help bring social and economic opportunity to the estimated 5 billion people who are not yet realizing the benefits of technology.

More information can be found at Microsoft.com/unlimitedpotential. A detailed background on Microsoft’s work to port Windows to the OLPC XO can be found at blogs.technet.com/jamesu. More at Microsoft.

HD Quality Web Video and Audio Now Available With Adobe Flash Player Update.

SAN JOSE, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 03, ‘07 — Adobe Systems today announced the immediate availability of Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3 software, previously code named Moviestar.

Adobe Flash Player 9 now includes H.264 standard video support, the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players, and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio capabilities. The latest update also features hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced, full-screen video playback for high-resolution viewing across major operating systems and browsers.

The combination of Adobe Flash Player 9 and Adobe Flash Media Server 3 (also announced today) enables the delivery of HD quality video to the broadest online audience.

H.264 support is an encoding option in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects software and is now integrated across the Adobe Flash family of products. Support extends to applications developed for Adobe AIR software, a cross-operating system application runtime that enables developers to use their existing skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.

Expected to be available in early 2008, Adobe Media Player, the first application from Adobe built on Adobe AIR, will leverage both H.264 video and HE-AAC audio support. Adobe Media Player takes Flash streaming video experiences outside the Web browser delivering more viewing options, such as watching videos anytime, anywhere.

Adobe Flash Player content reaches over 99 percent of Internet-enabled desktops, as well as hundreds of millions of mobile and set-top devices, enabling organizations and individuals to build and deliver rich Web video experiences that work consistently across multiple platforms. Leveraging Adobe’s Emmy Award winning Flash architecture, Adobe Flash Player can be used to view both live and on-demand media or entertainment on sites such as CBS, NBC, FoxNews Digital, PBS, MTV Networks, BBC and Hulu.

The technology also powers the video capabilities of popular social networking sites including YouTube and MySpace. With H.264 and HE-AAC support in Adobe Flash Player 9 and Adobe Flash Media Server 3, content providers can now deliver HDTV-quality streaming video on the Web.

Since H.264 and HE-AAC are open industry standards and already integrated into existing authoring and publishing workflows, content producers can leverage their existing H.264 material and seamlessly play back the native content in Adobe Flash Player. This enables publishers to encode content once and then distribute it to multiple mediums, resulting in the potential for reduced costs and time savings.

Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3 is immediately available as a free download for Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms from adobe.com/go/getflashplayer.

Inter BEE 2007 – CHIBA CITY, Japan –BUSINESS WIRE– Teac exhibits the HD-R1 recorder/player that uses Compact Flash as the recording media, at Inter BEE 2007, an international broadcasting equipment exhibition, in Makuhari. The device supports recording in MP3 and PCM (up to 96 kHz) format. It also supports control via LAN or RS-232C. A USB host feature enables playback of sound files in USB memory.

The SS-CDR1 recorder/player with Compact Flash and CD-R/RW drives supports recording in MP3 and PCM (up to 48 kHz) format. It also supports dubbing between CDR and Compact Flash media, continuous recording, and playback.

As with the HD-R1, the SS-CDR1 is a recorder/player that uses Compact Flash as the recording media. The supported recording formats are MP3 and PCM (up to 48 kHz). Photo Credit: SweetWater.

The HD-R1 can be yours for $1100 at SweetWater

San Francisco, CA–Nov 02, ‘07 /PRNewswire/ — blinkx, the largest video search engine on the Web, today announced a partnership with GONG, the first and only anime TV network that brings the best cutting-edge Japanese animation anywhere, anytime, on any screen. Under the terms of the agreement, blinkx will transcribe and index video content from GONG, making it easy for users to find and watch at blinkx.

Dedicated to teen and adult anime fans alike, GONG is the first international on-demand, online anime channel in Europe and North America. GONG offers the best in Japanese anime including sci-fi, horror, heroic fantasy and epic space opera content. Currently available online and direct to a variety of devices including computers, mobile phones and MP3 devices, GONG also offers on-demand access to unique Animitles, trailers, wallpapers, news, alerts and free podcasts.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 24, ‘07 - SanDisk said it filed three patent infringement actions on Wednesday against 25 companies that make, sell and import USB flash drives and other products. The actions, filed in the United States District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin and with the United States International Trade Commission allege the defendants have infringed SanDisk patents.

The company seeks damages and a permanent injunction as well as a permanent exclusion order from the ITC banning importation of the products into the United States.

More at Reuters

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday it has developed a more advanced flash memory chip that will allow increased data storage in digital products such as music players.

Samsung, the world’s largest maker of computer memory chips, unveiled a 64-gigabit NAND flash memory chip based on finer process technology using circuit elements that are 30 nanometers wide. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers across.

Samsung touted the development of the chip as a world first and said the new chip marks the eighth straight year that memory density has doubled and the seventh straight year that the nanometer scale has improved for NAND flash.The company said it plans to begin production of the chip in 2009.

More at AP

Finally, there’s an exceptionally easy way to move video from your PC to your TV. Says SanDisk. MILPITAS, CA - October 22, 2007 - SanDisk today announced the U.S. availability of the Sansa TakeTV video player along with the public BETA version of Fanfare, a dynamic Web-based service that enables consumers to download television shows, movies and other premium video content to portable devices.

Sansa TakeTV Specs:

- 4GB and 8GB
- $99.99 and $149.99
- USB 2.0
- DivX(Home Theater profile), xVid, MPEG-4
- 720×576 Resolution, NTSC and PAL

Fanfare Video Downloads:

- Content Partners: CBS, Jaman.com, Showtime, Smithsonian Networks, Weather Channel, TV Guide, Survivor China, Dexter and Sleeper Cell
- Combination of free(ad supported) and paid episodes
- Will gain additional features when the full version is launched early next year
- Future plans include video being transferred via SanDisk mobile cards
- TrustedFlash–DRM (developed by SanDisk, IBM & Extend Media)
- Needs Sansa TakeTV to extract content for TV playback

More at SanDisk here and here

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oct. 15, 2007 — The BBC and Adobe Systems Incorporated, today announced a strategic relationship around the delivery of Web video. By adopting Adobe Flash Player software, the BBC will make its free catch-up TV service — BBC iPlayer —available as a streaming service across Macintosh and Linux, as well as Windows, by the end of the year. The strategic relationship will also allow the BBC to provide a single consistent user experience for the majority of streamed video and audio content on bbc.co.uk.

The BBC iPlayer on-demand streaming service will complement the download service currently available. This non-exclusive relationship is part of the BBC’s strategy to reinvent bbc.co.uk, to ensure all its rich-media content is accessible to the widest audience possible.

Erik Huggers, BBC future media and technology group controller said, “I’m delighted to announce this strategic relationship with Adobe. It is important to ensure that BBC iPlayer is available on as many platforms as possible.”

Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe added, “Adobe is driving the next generation of video delivery by accelerating the fusion of TV and the Internet. With more control over playback, interactivity and branding, the move to Flash Player compatible video will help the BBC to engage audiences by delivering a seamless, instant-on Web video experience.”

More at Adobe Press Room

According to Reuters, Adobe has released new software, Flash Lite 3, for its popular Flash Player on Sunday that promises to bring the quality of live video on cellular phones closer to that of video on computers.

Adobe, whose software made possible the rapid rise of pioneering online video site YouTube, said Nokia and NTT DoCoMo would use its new Flash Lite 3 in their new cell phones.

More at Reuters…