Flash

Intel's deep commitment to flash memory technology was on display today with two announcements centered on large business customers.

The world's largest chipmaker announced it was a lead investor in a company that makes flash storage more palatable to the enterprise, while Hitachi announced the fruits of joint flash development with Intel aimed at large businesses.

As part of 18 new investments by Intel Capital totaling $77 million, the world's largest chipmaker led a group that invested $32 million in Anobit. The Israel-based company has patented technology that increases the long-term reliability of lower-cost-per-bit flash memory, referred … Read more

On Friday, Intel introduced its most competitively priced solid-state drive yet and will be selling the drive to consumers through major retail outlets. Are SSDs finally becoming a worthy upgrade?

The Intel X25-M 120GB Solid-State Drive is set to be offered at Best Buy and Fry's Electronics for a suggested retail price of $249. Newegg is already selling the drive. Competitive SSDs would include a 128GB drive for $269 from Crucial.

Though still pricey by traditional spinning hard disk drive standards (1 terabyte desktop HDDs can be had for less than $100), it's a dramatic change from two … Read more

Apple's new Air is the first flash-only MacBook. So, how does it stack up against the handful of laptop lines out there that offer only solid-state drives?

Well, it's actually not a very pretty picture for other laptop lines based on flash memory only, or more commonly referred to as solid-state drives (SSDs). A few previously prominent laptops have either been phased out or are languishing.

Dell Adamo: This line of 0.65-inch thick aluminum-clad ultraportables from Dell have been SSD-only from day one. So, Dell actually beat Apple to the punch in this respect. But the line has been reduced to a single $999 model with a 128GB SSD--the higher-end Adamo with a 256GB SSD and faster processor is no longer available from Dell. And the novel Adamo XPS is no longer available for sale on Dell's Web site--this was SSD only too.

Dell Latitude E4200: Announced in August 2008, this line of pricey business ultraportables is still available and comes standard with only 128GB SSDs. Prices start at $1,729.

Lenovo ThinkPad X300/X301: The venerable ThinkPad X300 was from its inception SSD only. Alas, this line has been discontinued. Lenovo still offers comparable X series Thinkpads and IdeaPads but none are SSD only.

Sony Z series: The Z line is alive and well, thank you. Z laptops come with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB options, with prices ranging from about $1,800 to well over $3,000.

Toshiba R500/R600: The Toshiba R500, now quite dated (first announced in June 2007), features only flash storage but the specs are a little long in the tooth, namely its older U7600 Intel processor and Windows Vista operating system.… Read more

The second-generation Apple TV went under the knife again. This time iSuppli tore the TV down to reveal its cost to Apple at just less than $64.

The "Cadillac" of set-top boxes carries a bill of materials of $61.98, including additional items boxed with the product, according to a preliminary teardown analysis firm iSuppli. When adding the manufacturing costs, the Apple outlay rises to $63.95, iSuppli said. The assessment does not take into consideration other expenses such as R&D, software, licensing, and royalties.

As reported previously, Apple TV's internal design and key components are remarkably similar to those of the iPad. "The first Apple TV was built like a net top computer. The architecture was basically a stripped down, small-form-factor desktop PC," said Andrew Rassweiler, an analyst at iSuppli. "The second-generation Apple TV is more like an iPad or iPod Touch with no display. The Apple TV's A4 processor core, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip, and power management chip are the same building blocks used in the iPad, iPhone 4, and iPod Touch," he wrote.

And Apple has improved the profit margins this time around. The original Apple TV was sold at prices that weren't much more than the underlying hardware costs. But, at $99, the second-generation product's price is well above its bill of materials and manufacturing cost, according to iSuppli.

Hardware of note includes the Samsung-manufactured Apple A4 application processor and accompanying DRAM ($16.55), the Toshiba flash memory ($14), the Panasonic and Broadcom Wi-Fi/Bluetooth component ($7.65),… Read more

On Tuesday, Hitachi-LG Data Storage announced a hybrid optical drive that can obviate the need for a traditional hard disk drive in thin laptop designs.

Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) disclosed a second-generation Serial-ATA (SATA) 6.0-gigabit-per-second (Gbps)-based "hybrid drive" at Ceatec 2010, held this week in Makuhari Messe, Japan. The drive is meant to eliminate the need for a separate traditional (spinning) hard disk drive in laptops, allowing PC makers to bring out optical-drive-equipped systems with only one drive.

Boise, Idaho-based Micron Technology also announced today that it is supplying 25-nanometer NAND flash chips for the drive. … Read more

Samsung is set to ship a new high-speed solid-state drive that can hold 512GB of data, as these drives begin to standardize at higher levels of capacity.

Samsung, currently considered the leader in solid-state drive market share and technology, is touting a new development called "toggle-mode DDR (double data rate) NAND," which the company says allows high-performance without a corresponding increase in power consumption. (NAND technology is synonymous with flash memory, used widely in high-end smartphones such as Apple's iPhone.)

"Toggle mode NAND uses a synchronous interface as opposed to an asynchronous interface of standard NAND thereby permitting a larger bandwidth," said Gregory Wong, president of Forward Insights, a consulting and market research company, which specializes in NAND memory.

Wong continued. "The standard NAND interface is about 40 Mbps (megabits per second) and is a performance bottleneck for performance-oriented systems such as SSDs. The toggle mode DDR2 NAND is 200Mbps. This means that you can achieve the same SSD performance with toggle-mode NAND as with a standard NAND interface with a lower-power footprint," he said.

Intel and Micron Technology offer analogous technology with their SSDs, Wong said. … Read more

SanDisk announced that it is shipping a 32GB memory card for smartphones--the largest capacity to date.

Currently, smartphone MicroSD cards top out at 16GB. The removable SanDisk microSDHC card would match the maximum internal capacity of high-end phones like the Apple iPhone 3GS and Google Nexus One.

SanDisk follows Samsung, which announced its intention in January to begin mass production of a 32GB MicroSD card this month.

The Milpitas, Calif., company is mass-producing the new cards based on a third-generation 32-nanometer X3 (3-bit-per-cell) technology, which makes it possible to pack 32GB of storage into a tiny MicroSD card.

Buyer beware: … Read more

Intel has starting shipping a solid-state drive that can speed Windows 7 and app load times.

Intel says the drive is aimed at "dual-drive/boot drive desktop set-ups" as well as Netbooks. Solid-state drives typically offer better performance--in some cases, dramatically better performance--than hard disk drives. But SSDs cost more per gigabyte than hard drives, a fact, which, to date, has limited SSDs to performance-sensitive applications such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers.

The Intel X25-V is a relatively low-capacity SSD at 40GB, but claims performance that is four times faster than a 7200RPM hard disk drive. … Read more

An analyst at AVI Securities said Friday morning that the Apple tablet is "in full production" and a research note stated that Apple "NAND" flash chip requirements may be increasing because of the tablet.

The Apple tablet information comes from "a maker of components going into the Apple tablet," according to analyst Matt Thornton. "It's been in the supply chain for a while and entered full production this month. A couple of suppliers actually had weaker Decembers than they would have expected because production was pushed back a little bit," he … Read more