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BOISE, Idaho & SANTA CLARA, Calif –BUSINESS WIRE– Feb 01, `08 — Intel and Micron Technology today unveiled a high speed NAND flash memory technology that can greatly enhance the access and transfer of data in devices that use silicon for storage. The new technology – developed jointly by Intel and Micron and manufactured by the companies’ NAND flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) – is five times faster than conventional NAND, allowing data to be transferred in a fraction of the time for computing, video, photography and other consumer applications.

The new high speed NAND can reach speeds up to 200 megabytes per second (MB/s) for reading data and 100 MB/s for writing data, achieved by leveraging the new ONFI 2.0 specification and a four-plane architecture with higher clock speeds. In comparison, conventional single level cell NAND is limited to 40 MB/s for reading data and less than 20 MB/s for writing data.

“The computing market is embracing NAND-based solutions to accelerate system performance through the use of caching and solid-state drives,” said Pete Hazen, director of marketing, Intel NAND Products Group. “At up to five times the performance over conventional NAND, the high speed NAND from Intel and Micron, based on the ONFi 2.0 industry standard, will enable new embedded solutions and removable solutions that take advantage of high–performance system interfaces, including PCIe and upcoming standards such as USB 3.0.”

For example, the specific performance advantages of high speed NAND in today’s most popular devices include:

* When used in a hybrid hard drive, high speed NAND can allow the system to read and write data anywhere between two or four times the speed when compared to conventional hard drives.
* With the popularity of digital video cameras and video on demand services, high speed NAND can enable a high-definition movie to be transferred five times faster than conventional NAND.
* With the pending USB 3.0 interface, high speed NAND is expected to effectively deliver on the increased data transfer rates of the new specification, where conventional NAND would act as the bottleneck in system performance. USB 3.0 is aiming for 10 times the bandwidth of current USB 2.0 solutions, or approximately achieving 4.8 gigabits per second.
* As NAND continues to move into the PC platform, the Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface (NVMHCI) can take advantage of high speed NAND in solutions such as Intel Turbo Memory, allowing for even better system performance. NVMHCI is designed to provide a standard software programming interface allowing operating system drivers to access NAND flash memory storage in applications such as hard drive caching and solid-state drives. More at Micron.

Tokyo, Japan — Hitachi, Japan’s biggest electronics conglomerate, plans to exit the business of making small hard disk drives as demand shifts to flash memory chips, Reuters reports citing the Nikkei business daily reports on Sunday.

“Hitachi’s hard drive unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has already stopped production of 1-inch hard drives and plans to stop shipping 1.8-inch drives around next summer, the newspaper said.

The Nikkei also said Hitachi rival Fujitsu has given up on plans to enter the market for small drives. Fujitsu had been developing 1.8-inch drives with U.S.-based Cornice with plans to bring a product to market in 2007.

Hitachi will focus on 2.5-inch and 3.5-drives, anticipating strong demand for the bigger drives that are used in personal computers and digital electronics such as DVD recorders, the Nikkei said.” More at Reuters.

On  Dec 14 Intel announced the Intel Z-P140 PATA Solid State Drive (SSD), an ultra-small - smaller than a penny, weighing less than a drop of water - complete storage solution for mobile digital entertainment, and embedded applications, offering low-power, high performance, and durability, which is also 400x smaller than a 1.8″ hard-drive.

Using the industry standard PATA interface, the Intel Z-P140 PATA SSD offers the capacity and features to accelerate computing trends towards greater mobility.

Right Fit
Using the standard PATA interface, chipscale package-on-package technology, and a form factor significantly smaller than hard disk drives, the Z-P140 PATA SSD enables smaller and easier storage design.

Right Capacity
2, 4, 8, and 16GB capacities are enough to support operating system storage, applications, data, and media storage, meeting mainstream density requirements for most computing markets.

Right Performance
Fast to boot, load, and run applications, with low power and extended durability, solid state technology has no moving parts, allowing for faster system response and longer battery life.

More at Intel here and here (in pdf).

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.

Seoul, South Korea & Tokyo, Japan –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 03, ‘07 — Samsung Electronics and Toshiba today announced that they have licensed to one another the rights to produce, market and sell memory with the specifications and trademarks of Samsung’s OneNAND and Toshiba’s LBA-NAND memory chips.

As a result of the reciprocal arrangement, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will have a broader choice of suppliers for each premium memory chip, thereby reducing any potential risk of over-dependence on a single supplier for any of the selected chips. The arrangement is expected to result in increased availability of premium-performance OneNAND and LBA-NAND flash devices worldwide.

Under terms of the agreement, Samsung will license product specifications of its integrated OneNAND and Flex-OneNAND “fusion” memory chips to Toshiba, while Toshiba will license product specifications of its single-package LBA-NAND and mobileLBA-NAND flash chips to Samsung. Both companies will develop and market products that are compatible with the respective original-source technology. Samsung and Toshiba each plan to release products next year based on the respectively licensed product specifications. More here.