Phase Change Memory
Designers Promised 2nd Source
Editor:- June 23, 2009 - Numonyx announced a
technology
agreement with Samsung
Electronics to develop common specifications for
Phase
Change Memory (PCM) products.
Both companies expecting to have
compliant devices ("pin for pin" comatible) available next year.
Editor's comments:- some large oems prefer to have alternate
sources before designing in new chips. It was
IBM's
insistence than Intel allow an official 2nd source for its x86 processors -
as part of the original Wintel PC design - which sowed the seeds for decades of
legal acrimony with AMD. (Intel and AMD didn't like each other much before that
anyway.)
Crocus Ports MRAM to Tower Fab
Editor:- June 18,
2009 -
Tower Semiconductor,
announced
it has taken an equity position (value approx $1.25 million) in Crocus Technologies,
and announced it is porting Crocus's
MRAM
to its 200mm wafer fab.
Editor's comments:- Crocus's
whitepaper -
the
Emergence of Practical MRAM (pdf) - gives the best explanation I've seen of
why, despite so many companies entering the MRAM market, so few useful products
have actually come out. It describes flaws in the intrinsic technology which
lead to data corruption (similar in concept to read-disturb errors in flash -
although completely different physically). It's necessary to fix these problems
to enable
reliable data storage.
The paper describes the proposed solution and also compares MRAM's
data density to other semiconductor memory technologies, including SRAM,
DRAM and
flash.
AGIGA Tech Samples High Density Non Volatile RAM Chips
Editor:-
May 26, 2009 - AGIGA
Tech started
sampling its new AGIGARAM
non-volatile system ( technology which delivers densities between 4 megabytes
(32 megabits) and 2 gigabytes (16 gigabits) and peak transfer rates equivalent
to DRAMs.
"Today's memory technologies all have a problem. DRAM is
volatile, flash is slow, SRAM with batteries is unreliable, and alternative
technologies are too costly to use in large densities," said Jim Handy,
Director of Objective
Analysis. "Products like AgigA Tech's that combine the best attributes
of DRAM and
NAND are likely to meet
with broad acceptance."
|
|
| PhotoFast
Announces Faster 1.8" Notebook SSDs |
| Editor:- May 27, 2009 - PhotoFast launched
its G-Monster 1.8"
SATA SSD with
internal 64MB DRAM cache
and upto 128GB capacity. |
 |
| It supports R/W speeds upto
230MB/s and 160MB/s respectively. The company says - what's important in this
type of notebook product is not just sequential R/W throughput for large blocks
- but also write performance for small random blocks. It claims its 12MB/s (for
4KB blocks) is best in class. | |
|
Unity Semiconductor Unveils
Flash's Successor
Editor:- May 19, 2009 - Unity Semiconductor
exited stealth mode and stated its aim to have the lowest manufacturing
cost per bit in the non volatile memory industry with a new breakthrough
technology called
CMOx.
The
company said it will ship 64Gb devices in volume in 2011. Unity Semiconductor
says it will develop and produce NAND flash successor technologies and
products that, in time, will extend into high ]performance embedded and
enterprise applications.
"It's a Technology for Terabits that
will challenge high volume rotating magnetic media" said Unity
Semiconductor Chairman, President & CEO Darrell Rinerson a former executive
at Micron Technology
and at AMD.
The
company, also announced today it has closed a Series C funding round for $22
million. This brings to nearly $75M the total funding to date in Unity
Semiconductor.
Article Peers into Nanocrystal NAND
Editor:- May
18, 2009 - a good article published on Semiconductor International called
- Peering
into Nanocrystal NAND - looks at factors affecting the potetial for future
shrinks in flash memory.
The author David Lammers
tackles an issue which I know has been worrying many flash SSD designers. He
starts with this sobering observation... "As the polysilicon floating
gate becomes smaller, fewer electrons are used to store a single bit. Any
rupture in the floating gate allows the electrons to leak away, presenting
reliability
challenges." ...read
the article
Ramtron's F-RAM Casualty of Auto Market Crash
Editor:-
May 7, 2009 - Ramtron
said its revenue
declined
26% in the 1st quarter of 2009 compared to the year ago period.
A
sharp decline in orders from the automotive market was cited as a principal
cause.
Ramtron also announced an update on a legal suit related to
in-field failures of one of its F-RAM memory products in an unspecified
application. (In July 2008 Ramtron confirmed that specific batches of product
had failed due to manufacturing
process
defects in one of its partners fabs.)
Ramtron also announced
today that, over the next 2 years, it will transition the manufacturing of
products that are currently being built at Fujitsu's chip foundry located in
Iwate, Japan to its foundry at Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas and to its
newest foundry at IBM Corp in Essex Junction, Vermont.
Samsung Pays Spansion $70 million
Editor:- April 7,
2009 - Samsung
Electronics will pay Spansion $70 million
as part of a flash memory
patent settlement
announced
today.
The companies have also exchanged rights in their patent
portfolios in the form of licenses and covenants subject to a confidential
settlement agreement.
How 3D Memory Stacks Up - New Market Report
Editor:-
April 1, 2009 - Forward Insights
has released a new 70+ page report (price $5,499) called -
How 3D Memory Stacks
Up.
3D memory technologies offer the promise of continued increases
in storage capacities and lower cost per bit necessary to enable emerging
applications such as solid
state drives.
Among the candidates: stacked NAND technologies employing charge
trapping technology, vertical memory cells etched in a pillar and stackable
cross-point memory arrays. This report explores the feasibility of each of these
alternatives as a candidate to replace NAND
flash memories within the
next 4 years.
Aleratec Launches High Volume USB Flash Duplicators
Chatsworth, CA
- March 10, 2009 - Aleratec Inc. announces 2 new USB flash
duplicators.
Both the 27 way model (ESP $3,799) and 118 way model
(ESP $15,749) can copy up to 33MB/s. Aleratec's President and CEO, Perry
Solomon says - "The performance of the duplicators is not degraded when
simultaneously copying large numbers flash drives, a common shortcoming in most
USB flash drive
duplicators." ...Aleratec
profile, Disk
Duplicators
RRAM Steps Closer to Commercial Fabs
Editor:- March
10, 2009 - 4DS
announced
additional funding
as part of a multi-million dollar equity investment to port its
RRAM
technology to existing semiconductor fabs.
"PPP's investment
during a very tepid investment climate is testimony to the strength of our
technology and strategy," said Kurt Pfluger, CEO of 4DS, Inc. "We have
demonstrated the leaps in performance, flexibility and cost from our proprietary
process that will help enable a variety of compelling future memory
applications. With this additional investment from PPP, we are better positioned
to bring this technology to market."
Spansion Files for Bankruptcy
SUNNYVALE,
Calif. - March 1, 2009 - Spansion Inc. the world's largest pure-play
provider of flash memory solutions, today filed a voluntary petition for
reorganization under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
The
company believes that its current and anticipated cash resources will be
sufficient to pay its expenses and maintain its business operations while it
explores and implements options to address its long-term cash needs. Spansion
emphasized that it intends to maintain customer service throughout the
reorganization.
...Spansion profile
Analyst comments:-
Jim Handy at Objective
Analysis explores
what
is likely to happen next? (pdf)
Hyperstone Launches CF SSD Controller
Konstanz,
Germany - February 19, 2009 - Hyperstone launched a controller
chip for oems designing industrial grade CF compatible SSDs.
The
F4 provides safe power-fail handling, error detection and correction and
static wear leveling. Data transfer rate to the attached
flash memory array (16
chips) is upto 80MB/s. Sustained R/W via the CF interface is upto 50MB/s and
40MB/s respectively. Alternatively oems can add a
SATA bridge, or
RAID controller for
other markets. ...Hyperstone
profile
SanDisk and Toshiba Confirm Flash Fab Assets Swap
MILPITAS,
CA - January 29, 2009 - SanDisk announced today that it has signed a
definitive agreement with Toshiba to restructure their flash
manufacturing joint ventures operating at the 300-mm Fab 3 and Fab 4.
As
part of the agreement, more than 20% of the joint ventures'capacity will be
transferred to Toshiba. The restructuring will result in the transfer of
equipment lease obligations from SanDisk to Toshiba and a cash payment to
SanDisk for the transfer of certain equipment currently owned by the joint
ventures. The total value to SanDisk is approximately 80 billion yen, or
approximately $890 million based on current exchange rates. The lease transfers
and cash payment are expected to be completed by the end of the first calendar
quarter of 2009. ...SanDisk
profile, ...Toshiba
profile, merged &
gone away storage companies
Editor's comments:- this simply
confirms earlier public announcements made by both companies
last October.
pureSilicon Unveils Terabyte 2.5" SSD
Editor:-
January 8, 2009 - according to a news report on
Marketwire
- pureSilicon is
sampling the highest density
2.5" SSD - with
1TB capacity in a 9.5mm high form factor.
Sustained read / write
performance is said to be 240MB/s and 215MB/s respectively. The
SATA SSD has latency
under 100 µsec and is rated at 50,000 read IOPS, and 10,000 write IOPS.
The
company emerged from stealth mode in October 2008 as a
military storage oem -
but the new products could find a much bigger market in commercial servers. I
asked if compression was involved in achieving the capacity - but was told - no.
Internally it's got 128 pieces of 64Gb MLC NAND.
Forward Insights Unveils 2009 Flash Market Reports
Editor:- December 15,
2008 - Forward Insights has published a new list of planned market
reports in 2009.
- How 3D Memory Stacks Up
- NAND Quarterly Insights
- 3-bit per cell/4-bit per cell NAND Flash Memory Report
- NAND Flash Memory IP Landscape
- Sensing Schemes for 3-bit and 4-bit per cell NAND Flash Memories
- Solid State Drive Report
- Emerging Memories Topical Report
The company also publishes a frequently updated
blog about developments in
the flash SSD market. ...Forward Insights
profile, SSD
analysts
Flash Memory's Next Shrink Now Shipping
Boise,
Idaho - November 24, 2008 - Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc.
today announced mass production of their jointly developed 34nm, 32 gigabit
MLC NAND flash memory device.
The process technology enables the
industry's only monolithic 32Gb NAND chip that fits into a standard 48-lead
TSOP. The new chip will cost-effectively enable high-density solid-state
storage in small form factor applications including digital cameras, personal
music players and digital camcorders. Additionally, it will enable more
cost-effective SSDs,
dramatically increasing their current storage capacity. ...Intel profile ,
...Micron profile,
Flash Memory
Spansion Launches $100 billion Flash Suit
SunnyvaleCalif.
- November 17, 2008 -
Spansion Inc. today announced that it is filing patent infringement
complaints against Samsung with the ITC.
In one of the
largest patent infringement claims ever filed, Spansion is seeking the exclusion
from the U.S. market of well over 100 million mp3 players, cell phones, digital
cameras and other consumer electronic devices containing Samsung's infringing
flash memory components. The complaint also seeks an injunction and 3x damages
for patent violations relating to Samsung flash memory, that Spansion estimates
has accounted for more than $30 billion in Samsung's global revenues since 2003.
Although Samsung is the target of the litigations, Spansion is
required to name the manufacturers of downstream products containing Samsung's
infringing devices in its ITC complaint. Companies named in the ITC case
include: Samsung, Apple, Asus, Kingston, Lenovo, PNY, RIM, Sony, Sony-Ericsson,
Transcend, some of their subsidiaries and 3rd party manufacturing companies.
The Spansion patents named in these law suits are fundamental to
floating gate technology, which is the foundation for approximately 90% of the
flash memory market.
Spansion is also leading the industry with MirrorBit, a charge-trapping
technology, that represents a growing share of the Flash memory market and is
expected to replace floating gate technology in the future. Flash memory
companies including Samsung have publicly announced their plans to transition to
charge-trapping type technologies for their future generation products.
...Spansion profile,
...Samsung profile
Analyst
comments:- from Jim Handy founder of
Objective
Analysis - "Spansion explains that they have been in conversations
with the majority of flash memory manufacturers to discuss friendly ways of
licensing their charge-trapping IP on fair terms, but that the company's
negotiations with Samsung came to a sudden stop a few months ago..."
...read
article analyzing this (pdf)
Petite SSD Chip Seeks Reliable Rugged Assignments
Austin,
Texas - November 5 , 2008 - Austin Semiconductor, Inc. announces a
smaller, more compact 7.5 cm3 (31mm sq x 7.8mm max height) ruggedized flash
SSD.
The SLC flash SSD offers upto 16GB capacity, has an IDE, PIO/4
interface, and MTBF of more than 2 million hours. and is designed for harsh
environment operation.
...Austin
Semiconductor profile
IMEC Revs Up for RRAM Dash to Replace Flash
Leuven,
Belgium - October 14, 2008 - In order to explore solutions to overcome the
scaling limitations of conventional flash memory cells, IMEC has started
new research activities on resistive RAM (RRAM) cells.
Resistive
switching memories are based on materials whose resistivity can be electrically
switched between high and low conductive states. RRAM is becoming of interest
for future scaled memories because of their superior intrinsic scaling
characteristics compared to the charge-based Flash devices, and potentially
small cell size (enabling dense crossbar RRAM arrays using vertical diode
selecting elements).
IMEC sees RRAM as a potential candidate to
replace conventional Flash memory and hence to push NVM technology towards the
(sub-)22nm technology node.
...IMEC profile
Lexar's 300x 16GB CF
Fremont,
CA - September 09, 2008 - Lexar Media announced imminent
availabality of the Lexar Professional UDMA 300x 16GB CF card.
Speed-rated at 300x, which represents a minimum sustained write speed of 45MB
per second, the new CF card is aimed at professional photographers and photo
enthusiasts.
...Lexar profile
New CompactFlash Standard Now Available
PALO ALTO, Calif. -
September 3, 2008 - the CompactFlash Association announces that the
new CFast specification revision 1.0 is now available for download.
The first CFast cards (CompactFlash form factor card with a
SATA interface) were
demonstrated at the Flash Memory
Summit in August.
The current CompactFlash PATA (parallel ATA) interface provides up
to a 133MB/second interface data rate. The SATA interface will provide interface
data rates up to 3Gb/sec as well as compatibility with the SATA disk drive
interfaces that are increasingly being used.
...CompactFlash
Association profile, Flash
Memory Chips & Cards, Storage
ORGs
editor's comments:- the draft spec costs $100 for non CFA
members .
Endurance Article Survives Test of Popularity
Editor:-
July 31, 2008 - surprisingly my classic article
Flash SSD Myths
and Legends - "write endurance" was the 2nd most popular article
read on storagesearch.com in July.
When I first published it (a year
ago) I thought it would just appeal to a niche group of systems integrators and
SSD oems who were deeply immersed in the
flash SSD market.
But the many emails I've had about this subject and the high pageviews show I
was wrong.
Users care deeply about this issue - and recent
SSD news stories from Sun,
SanDisk etc reveal that the issue is at long last getting swept out from under
the carpet.
The original article has had many tweaks, updates and a
sequel which
upset some MLC SSD marketers. ...read the article
BTW
to see the list of the top 20 most popular articles see the
market research page. | |
| . |
 | |
|
|
|
| . |
 |
Can You Trust Your Flash
SSD's Specs & Benchmarks? |
No - sadly you
can't! There are many intrinsic technical reasons why you can't believe
most published benchmarks for flash SSDs (whether done by magazines or
vendors) and why even the tests you carefully do yourself don't give
reliable results which correlate with how the SSD will perform in real-life
applications.
We warned you of it this problem here on
StorageSearch.com last year - and now other publications and vendors are
starting to take it seriously too. ...read the article | |
| . |
|
|
| . |
SSDs Pass HDDs
in Storage Density?
2009 may well be remembered as the year
that flash SSDs surpassed
HDDs in storage capacity in the same form factor.
I'm not talking about
itsy bitsy
1 inch and smaller drives
here. I'm talking about the hard core
2.5" form factor.
That's
the size which once seemed to offer the
best hopes
for hard disk makers staying in business - in applications like disk to
disk backup, entertainment
bulk storage etc.
In January 2009 - pureSilicon started
sampling a
2.5" MLC SSD -
with 1TB capacity in a 9.5mm high form factor.
A few weeks later
Western Digital
temporarily restored the parity in storage density when it announced a
2TB
3.5" hard drive. Since you can put 2x 2.5" drives into a single
3.5" enclosure - you
can think of them as being equivalent. That is until either the next
amplification in MLC (if it ever
works) or the next shrink in flash memory (maybe
later than sooner).
Price of the 2.5" terabyte SSD wasn't
mentioned. I expect it will cost a lot. But nowhere near as much as the 1st
terabyte SSDs cost - when they appeared in
2002 - at
a cool $2 million.
So you may well ask - when will SSDs cost less
than HDDs for the same capacity?
In some high-performance grades (15K
RPM server drives) - I expect to see that happen this year - in smaller
capacities like 100GB. Looking Ahead to the
2009 SSD Market | |
| . |
the Fastest Solid State
Disks
Speed isn't everything, and it comes at a price. |
But if
you do need the6speediest
SSD then wading through the web sites of over 100 current
SSD oems to find a suitable
candidate slows you down.
And the SSD search problem will get even
worse. |
 | |
| I've
done the research for you to save you time. And this page is updated daily from
storage news and direct
inputs from oems. ...read
the article, | |
| . |
| SSD Myths and
Legends - "write endurance" |
| Does
the fatal gene of "write endurance" built into
flash
solid state
disks prevent their deployment in intensive server acceleration
applications - such as RAID
systems? |
It
was certainly true as little as a few years ago.
What's the risk with
today's devices?
This article looks at the current generation of
products and calculates how much (or how little) you should be worried. |
| |
| RAM based SSDs have been
used alongside RAID for years - but
flash SSDs are
physically smaller and have bigger capacity (upto 412G in 2.5", 512G in
3.5") and are lower cost than RAM-SSDs and could actually be configured
in standard RAID boxes. F-SSDs aren't as fast as RAM based products but a single
flash SSD can deliver 20,000 IOPs - which when scaled up in an array - starts to
look interesting.
...read the
article,
storage reliability
solid state disks | |
| . |
 |
Increasing
Flash Solid State Disk Reliability - article by SiliconSystems
Solid
state disks, based on flash technology, have greatly improved in performance in
recent years and now compete head to head with RAM based accelerator systems.
Flash also has significant advatanges in servers compared to RAM SSDs due to low
power consumption.
But if you think that all solid state disks which
use flash are equally reliable and enduring then think again.
That's
a bit like saying that a Mercedes 300SL sports coupe is as tough as a Tiger
tank because both were made in Germany and both are built out of metal. But as
Oddball (Donald Sutherland) says in the movie
Kelly's
Heroes "I ain't messing with no Tigers."
This article
by SiliconSystems, shows how their patented architecture cleverly manages the
wear out mechanisms inherent in all flash media to deliver a disk lifetime that
is about 4 times greater than of other enterprise flash products and upto 100
times greater than intrinsic flash memory. ...read the article,
...SiliconSystems
profile, Solid state disks |
| |
| . |
Squeak!
- Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
Animal
marketing metaphors are popular in service industries, but you'd be surprised
how many companies have used animals in their marketing of data storage
products and services.
As the storage market gets bigger - more
companies will turn to animal brands to help differentiate their otherwise bland
products and lend them artificial (or deserving) characters and virtues.
The idea behind this type of marketing is to suggest positive connotations so
it's unlikely that anyone will choose to associate their products with gremlins.
But you may be surprised by the population of the storage ark.
This
reference articles lists all known companies who have furry marketing brands,
and also includes some which are slimy, scaly and scary too. ...read the article,
Mice in storage |
| | |
