Monthly Archives: June 2012

Jim Handy, The Memory Guy, writes that Flash memory is dead…but perhaps not just yet

My good friend Jim Handy—who writes several blogs including The Memory Guy and The SSD Guy—recently published a blog titled “The End of Flash Scaling.” He writes: “Everyone knows that flash memory is about to hit its scaling limit – … Continue reading

Posted in 3D, Flash, Memristor, MRAM, ReRAM, SSD | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Third Samsung memory video, well I’ll let you decide just how amusing this one is…

For the last two days, I’ve posted blog entries about two amusing Samsung memory videos aimed at memory consumers with fanciful supervillians named Fiona Freeze and Battery Brutus who caused havoc by inducing memory freezes and excessive battery drain. Samsung … Continue reading

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ARM, HP, and SK hynix join Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC). First spec due by end of year

Add ARM, HP, and SK hynix to the growing list of companies in the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC). The three new members join the original founding companies, Micron and Samsung, along with Altera, IBM, Microsoft, Open-Silicon, and Xilinx plus … Continue reading

Posted in 3D, DRAM, HMC, Hybrid Memory Cube, Hynix | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Second Samsung memory video just as amusing as the first

Yesterday, I posted a blog entry about an amusing Samsung memory video aimed at memory consumers with a fanciful supervillian named Fiona Freeze who was responsible for causing device freezups. Today, I present the Samsung Memory Battery Brutus video. Battery … Continue reading

Posted in DRAM, Samsung | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Samsung memory video “movie trailer” plays it cool

There are few things as geeky as deep-tech memory discussions so it’s a joy when you find something that raises the bar. Samsung did that last month with this video:

Posted in Storage | Tagged | 1 Comment

Whoa, Momma! Flash memory maker SK Hynix enters the SSD market. Take a look at these performance charts!

Jim Handy, the “SSD Guy” and the “Memory Guy,” just published a short blog post alerting us to the fact that Flash memory maker SK Hynix has entered the SSD market just four days after announcing the purchase of Link_A_Media, … Continue reading

Posted in Flash, mSATA, ONFI, SATA, SSD, Storage | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Registration opens for the Flash Memory Summit 2012. Read on for program highlights

The Flash Memory Summit takes place on August 21-23 here in Silicon Valley at the Santa Clara Convention Center and it’s now opened its registration. However, before you register, you might want to know what’s being covered. A reasonable request … Continue reading

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SSD prices: More affordable? Steady, substantial decline? In free fall? Just what is going on here?

Senior Writer Vincent Chang over at CNET writes that “SSDs are more affordable than ever” and has the charted data to prove it. Clayton Vallabhan at ITPnet.com goes even further, writing “SSD prices in freefall.” For an even more extensive … Continue reading

Posted in Flash, NAND, SSD, Storage | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Samsung’s 20nm-class DDR3 SDRAM runs on 1.35V, saves 2/3 of the power used by 50nm-class, 1.5V SDRAM

Not all DDR3 SDRAM is created equal. That’s the message Samsung is spreading lately by talking about its 20nm-class DDR3 SDRAM. The company is using 1.5V, 50nm-class DDR3 SDRAM as a benchmark and says that a server loaded with 96Mbytes … Continue reading

Posted in DDR3, DRAM, SDRAM | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Briefly noted: Greenliant adds 8, 16, and 32Gbyte e.MMC SSDs

Yesterday, Greenliant announced that it was adding SSDs to its NANDrive product line in the e.MMC form factor. These new drives are available in 8, 16, and 32Gbyte capacities and complement the SATA and PATA drives already in the NANDrive … Continue reading

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SK Hynix to acquire SSD controller vendor Link_A_Media for $248 million. That makes four.

Memory Industry Analyst Jim Handy took the unusual step of sending out an alert yesterday. The topic of the alert was the announced acquisition of Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD) by SK Hynix for a reported US $248 million. LAMD is a … Continue reading

Posted in SSD, Storage | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Briefly Noted: JEDEC publishes “A” rev of UFS HCI standard

JEDEC announced today that it has just published an “A” revision of the spec (JESD223A) for the Universal Flash Storage Host Controller Interface (UFS HCI), a companion to the JESD220 standard for UFS, a Flash storage specification for a range … Continue reading

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Will cache SSDs rule the world in notebook storage? IHS iSuppli’s Magic 8 Ball says “Signs point to Yes”

An excellent article by Hot Hardware’s Joel Hruska (see “Analysts Predict Skyrocketing SSD, Cache Drive Sales, But What Happened To Hybrid Hard Drives?”) contains several tasty bits of data and a quote from Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage … Continue reading

Posted in Flash, HDD, SSD, Storage | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Violin Memory’s Narayan Venkat writes about why Flash-based storage is doing well in data centers: time and money

Narayan Venkat, VP of product management at Violin Memory, recently published a guest blog post titled “6 Reasons Solid State Memory Is The Biggest Story In Computing” over at Forbes.com. The rhetoric in the article should be familiar stuff to … Continue reading

Posted in Flash, SSD, Storage | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

SK Hynix places bet on third wannabe non-volatile memory technology, phase-change memory, with IBM

When I was really young, I used to play a card game called “Pit” where you tried to corner the market on a particular commodity like oranges, sugar, soybeans, or corn. The game was based on the trading pits of … Continue reading

Posted in Hynix, Memristor, MRAM, NAND, PCM | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Want a quick and dirty overview of the new JEDEC LPDDR3 spec? EETimes serves it up

Kristin Lewotsky has just published an LPDDR3 SDRAM interview with Huong Vuong, Chairman of the JEDEC JC-42.6 Subcommittee for Low Power Memories. Here are the salient points from the interview, in my opinion: The purpose of LPDDR3 is to increase … Continue reading

Posted in LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR3E, LPDDR4, SDRAM | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yes Virginia, there was a Denali Party at DAC. “Nobody” came

Yes, there was a Denali Party at DAC 2012, sponsored by Cadence. It was held at the Ruby Skye nightclub, the same place it was held last time DAC rolled into San Francisco. “Nobody” came to the party, like the … Continue reading

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Flash Memory Summit 2012, Santa Clara, CA. Registration now open

Every year, the Flash Memory Summit rolls into Silicon Valley to discuss the latest in Flash memory, SSDs, and possibly up-and-coming alternative non-volatile memory technologies. This year, the event takes place on August 21-23 at the Santa Clara Convention Center … Continue reading

Posted in Flash, MRAM, NAND, SSD, Storage | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Corsair does the Neutron dance with new line of fast SSDs based on Toggle NAND Flash

PC hardware maker Corsair has introduced a new line of 2.5-inch, 7mm SSDs called the Neutron GTX series. I find it very interesting that the first fact put forth in the Corsair press release for this new series is about … Continue reading

Posted in Flash, NAND, SSD, Toggle | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

So just how big is the semiconductor memory market? $50 billion? $60 billion?

Yesterday, Jeremy Wagstaff, Chief Technology Correspondent for Reuters in Asia, published an article on wannabe non-volatile memory technologies such as MRAM and Memristors or ReRAM (See “Pushing the PRAM: when chips just can’t get any smaller”). The lure is a … Continue reading

Posted in DRAM, Flash, Memristor, MRAM | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Denali Memory Report gets a plug in Reuters story

Jeremy Wagstaff has just published an article on the rapidly evolving memory scene though Reuters. The article is titled “Pushing the PRAM: when chips just can’t get any smaller” and it does a good job of painting the current landscape. … Continue reading

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3D Thursday: Advantest 3D tester produces known good die and known good stacks

3D can’t move forward until the testability issues are solved. Hear that one? Well, Advantest has just advanced another click in that ratchet with this week’s introduction of a concept model test cell for TSV-based 2.5D and 3D products. It’s … Continue reading

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Will SSDs be the first big market for 3D NAND Flash memories?

I’ve been meaning to write about a comment regarding NAND Flash memory and SSDs written by Thomas McCormick in LinkedIn’s Solid State Storage Group and this seems like the perfect time. McCormick is an Integrated Hardware/Software Product Development Leader at … Continue reading

Posted in 3D, DDR, DRAM, Flash, Memristor, MRAM, NAND, SSD, Storage | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Toshiba launches family of thin 2.5-inch and mSATA SSDs based on 19nm Toggle NAND Flash

Toshiba has just launched a new SSD family called the THNSNF series based on the company’s 19nm Toggle NAND Flash multi-level cell (MLC) devices. The SSDs are offered in capacities from 64 to 512Gbytes. All members of the family employ … Continue reading

Posted in mSATA, SATA, SSD, Toggle | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

DRAMeXchange tests this year’s crop of 120Gbyte SSDs. Guess which one wins…

Yesterday, DRAMeXchange published some performance tests on five 120Gbyte SSDs. The results may surprise you. Click here: DRAMeXchange’s 2012 SSD Ranking – 120 GB SSD (SATA 2)  

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