Micron, Intel speed up flash memory
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Breaking the speed barrier of traditional flash memory, Intel and Micron Thursday announced a new flash memory architecture that increases the data transfer rates in consumer electronics by cutting the bottlenecks affecting conventional NAND flash memory.
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Smaller, more efficient memory could double chip performance for gamers and multimedia use by 2008.
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Data speeds could get a boost from Intel breakthrough into processors that make and manipulate light.
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(InfoWorld) - IntelÂ  threw down a gantlet today by entering the solid-state drive market with its first NAND flash memory product. The Intel Z-U130 Value Solid-State Drive represents a challenge to Samsung Corp., which is the world's largest producer of NAND flash memory for hardware and gadgets such as USB flash drives. The Z-U130 comes in capacities ranging from 1GB to 8GB and uses industry-standard USB interfaces, the company stated in a press release. The flash drive comes with reads rates of 28MB/sec. and write speeds of 20MB/sec. Intel expectsÂ its solid-state disk to be used in everything from servers and PCs toÂ gaming consoles. Intel's first entry into the solid-state disk market is still four times smaller in capacity compared withÂ otherÂ industry-leadingÂ products from companies such as SanDisk Corp. SanDiskÂ announced aÂ 32GB solid-state disk product in January (see "SanDisk shows solid-state drive "). But Intel also touts extreme reliability numbers, saying theÂ Z-U130 has an average mean time between failure of 5 million hours compared with SanDisk, which toutsÂ an MTBF of 2 million hours. Intel touted solid-state disk as a faster storage alternative that speeds through common PC or embedded application operations such as locating boot code, operating systems and commonly accessed libraries. It said its productÂ offers "cost-effective," high-performance storage with advantages over hard disk drives or removable Universal Serial Bus storage devices. Samsung recently announced its first hybrid drive, which uses NAND flash memory with spinning disk. That drive offers capacities of 80GB, 120GB and 160GB, along with 4GB of flash memory for caching data (see "Samsung ships its first hybrid disk drive"). Solid-state drives deliver faster boot times, embedded code storage, rapid data access and low-power storage alternatives for value PCs, routers, servers, and gaming and industrial applications. "Solid-state drive technology offers many benefits over traditional hard disk drives, including improved performance and reliability," said Randy Wilhelm, vice president and general manager of Intel's NAND products group. The Z-U130 solid-state drive is the company's first product in what Intel said will be a family ofÂ  value solid-state drives. The Z-U130 comes in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB densities. Intel said it has already made deals with server, notebook and PC manufacturers to include the Z-U130. The company's solid-state disk will also be used in Intel-embedded products for routers and point of sale terminals, it noted.
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(InfoWorld) - Intel said Tuesday it will ramp up performance and energy efficiency in its microprocessors by using a 32-nanometer process technology starting in 2009. During a keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini showed a 300mm wafer built using the 32-nm manufacturing technology. The chip will house more than 1.9 billion transistors and its increased performance will enable "true to life entertainment and real-life graphics capabilities," Otellini said in his keynote. The chips will be an upgrade over processors built using the 45-nm process Intel is incorporating in its Penryn processor, due in November, and Silverthorne and Nehalem processors, slated to appear early and in the second half of next year, respectively. Intel currently uses a 65-nm process to manufacture chips, and Penryn is the code name given to the 45-nm "shrink" of Intel's current chip designs. The measurements refer to the size of the features on the silicon chip. In the first public demonstration of the Nehalem processor, Otellini said it will deliver better performance per watt and better system performance through its QuickPath Interconnect system architecture, which will include an integrated memory controller and improved communication links between system components. Otellini also announced a Penryn dual-core processor operating at 25 watts that will be available on the upcoming Montevina platform, which will also include WiMax technology. To meet multiple computing needs, Otellini said Intel also plans to introduce 15 new 45-nm processors by the end of the year and 20 in the first quarter of 2008. Intel isn't the first to announce 32-nm chip technology. In May, a group of chipmakers led by IBM agreed to further collaborate to jointly develop 32-nm semiconductor production technology. Other companies in the collaboration include Freescale Semiconductor, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Infineon Technologies, and Samsung Electronics. There was nothing surprising in Otellini's keynote, said Doug Freedman, an analyst at American Technology Research. Intel's road map tends to be conservative, and the company is well on track to meeting its time line, he said. With the new chips, users will continue to get more processing performance at a similar price point, he said.
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By AME Info, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates  Feb. 15--IBM MEMORY BREAKTHROUGH: IMB says its embedded dynamic random  access memory, or eDRAM, will effectively double microprocessor performance  while remaining power efficient, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
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In papers presented at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) revealed a first-of-its-kind, on-chip memory technology that features the fastest access times ever recorded in eDRAM (embedded dynamic random access memory).
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SHANGHAI, China - Micron Technology Inc., the leading US based memory maker, is planning to build a test and assembly facility in China, according to an Associated Press report Monday (Oct. 18), which cited a company executive in Shanghai as its source.
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Intel and STMicroelectronics have developed a new type of PCM (phase-change memory) chip that doubles the memory density over previous versions, giving a boost to an emerging technology that could one day replace the flash memory chips widely used in portable devices.The technology is still experimental, but the companies marked another step in its evolution, delivering samples of the new chips to device makers. Proponents say that PCM is more reliable than flash memory, and that it will offer faster data transfer speeds and be more durable.PCM uses a glass-like material that can change from an amorphous, or gaseous, state to a crystalline state as its atoms are rearranged. The state of the material corresponds to the 1s and 0s in computing, allowing it to be used to store data.As a result of their work, Intel and STMicro said the glass-like material can now be turned into four states instead of two, allowing it to retain twice the amount of data. The material can also exist in liquid and semi-liquid states.The advances from Intel and STMicro have made the chips smaller and more power-efficient, said Guilio Casagrande, director of advanced research and development at STMicro.Intel and STMicro presented their new developments on Wednesday at the International Solid States Circuits Conference in San Francisco.Numerous other companies have also been working on PCM, also known as PRAM, including IBM, Qimonda, Macronix, Infineon and Samsung.Phase-change memory has existed since the 1960s, but the cost of the technology and the energy required to drive change between one state and another was not competitive compared to other memory technologies like RAM and flash, said Cliff Smith, technology initiatives manager of Intel&#39;s flash group.PCM has the potential to give fast read and write speeds, while the existing NOR flash type is slow to write and NAND flash is slow to read, Casagrande said. PCM could eventually replace existing memory technologies because of its power efficiency and its ability to reduce data leaks, Casagrande said.Intel and STMicroelectronics signed a contract to develop PCM in 2003 and are in the process of establishing a flash-memory joint venture called Numonyx, due to launch by March 28. STMicro will hold a 48.6 percent stake of Numonyx, with Intel retaining 45.1 percent. The investment company Francisco Partners is also taking part.Numonyx will manufacture existing flash memory types until PCM is ready for market, Smith said. He expects PCM to appear first in devices such as cell phones in two to three years. Its use will eventually overtake that of DRAM, NOR, and NAND flash, he said.
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By Susan Decker and Ian King Bloomberg News  Toshiba Corp., the world's second-biggest flash memory maker, said it will pay $288 million to Micron Technology Inc. to end patent litigation started by a company Micron bought in June.  Lexar Media Inc.
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Colorful, lighweight Inspiron consumer notebooks use flash memory instead of hard drives.
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Toshiba expands production of smaller, more energy-efficient NAND flash memory chips.
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A new type of flash memory that will speed access to data stored on memory cards and mobile devices has received the support of several major phone and memory vendors.
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Samsung Electronics Co. on Monday unveiled a new type of memory chip that it said will allow digital devices to work faster by saving new data more quickly.
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The company plans to present a paper this week outlining a new type of memory that could help boost processor performance.
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By Subashini Selvaratnam  INTEL Corp is working on a new 45-nanometre (nm) transistor technology which will boost the processing speeds in personal computers (PCs), laptops and servers.
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Samsung Electronics has developed ultra-fast 1Gb OneNand Flash memory designed for next-generation mobile phones which it claims boasts a fourfold read speed increase over conventional Nand Flash performance.