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Samsung Bring 15TB SSD To Market
Samsung has now officially announced and started to ship its new Samsung PM1633a line of solid state drives for Enterprise Storage Systems, which includes the highest capacity SSD ever made by Samsung, the 15.35TB PM1366a model.
Revealed back during the 2015 Flash Memory Summit in August last year, the now available Samsung PM1633a enterprise SSD series is based on a standard 2.5-inch form factor and features a 12Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface. It also uses Samsung new controller as well as Samsung’s own 3rd generation 256Gb 48-layer TLC V-NAND.
As noted, the Samsung PM1633a lineup is based on Samsung’s 256Gb V-NAND flash chips. The 256Gb dies are stacked in 16 layers to form a single 512GB package and by adding up a total of 32 NAND packages, you get the 15.36TB model. According to Samsung, the 3rd generation 256Gb V-NAND will provide both significant performance as well as reliability improvements compared to the PM1633 drive which used 2nd generation 32-layer 128Gb V-NAND flash.
The controller has also been upgraded to concurrently access large amounts of high-density NAND flash and the PM1633a 15.36TB model comes with no less than 16GB of cache.
When it comes to performance, the Samsung PM1633a provides sequential read and write performance of up to 1,200MB/s while random 4K performance is set at up to 200,000 IOPS for read and up to 32,000 IOPS for write. The new Samsung PM1633a enterprise SSD also offers high high reliability date with 1DWPD (drive writes per day), adding up to 15.36TB that can be written every day without failure, which is quite important in the enterprise market.
While the 15.36TB model of the Samsung P1633a is already shipping to select enterprise customers, Samsung is also promising a wide range of capacities, including 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB, 3.84TB and 7.68TB. According to Samsung, enterprise managers can now fit twice as many drives in a standard 19-inch 2U rack compared to a 3.5-inch storage drive.
Unfortunately, Samsung did not reveal any details regarding the price but we doubt that such high capacity and performance will have a low price tag.
Courtesy-Fud
Is Intel Trying To Destroy Micron?
Wall Street analysts have downgraded Micron technology’s value after Intel’s announcement that it will expand investment in NAND.
Intel plans to invest up to $5.5 billion over the coming years to use its Dalan, China, facility to expand its NAND manufacturing capacity. Initial 3D NAND production is expected to commence in second-half 2016 in Dalan.
Barrons has said that with pricing pressure already present in DRAM, Intel’s move puts Micron in a state of uncertainty.
This is a little odd given that Intel and Micron are chums, but Barron’s Rajvindra Gill said that the move will reduce Chipzilla’s dependence on Micron.
More than half of output is expected to use 3D NAND in the next two to three years and Intel’s focus on the technology reduces its reliance on Micron as a supplier while transforming it into a competitor, Gill said.
Micron be the last one standing when the mergers and acquisitions the industry is seeing and be an industry also ran.
Intel’s focus on the non-volatile memory market could put the pricing and supply/demand environment under pressure.
Micron has already had difficulties setting up 3D NAND versus its peers and now has another significant challenger entering the market, Gill said.
Intel’s move to NAND places a major Micron customer at risk. While Intel noted that its relationship with Micron remains strong and that it will continue to focus on 3D Xpoint, we believe the IM Flash Agreement could be at risk.
With Intel producing more NAND on its own, it could look to lower its reliance on the joint venture.
Intel has a right to sell its portion of the joint venture to Micron. If Intel elects to do so, a closing date would be set within two years. Sales to IM Flash sales to Intel were $101 million in the third quarter, or 8 per cent of trade NAND revenue.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/is-intel-trying-to-destroy-micron.html
Micron Ships Hybrid Memory Cube
Micron Technology has announced that is is currently shipping 2GB Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) engineering samples that represent a dramatic step forward in memory technology and are designed for applications that require high-bandwidth access to memory like data processing, data packet buffering or storage.
According to Micron, the Hybrid Memory Cube uses advanced through-silicon vias (TSVs)-vertical conduit that connect a stack of individual chips in order to combine high-performance logic with Micron’s DRAM. The current engineering sample features a 2GB memory cube that consists of four 4Gb DRAM dies. It provides 160GB/s of memory bandwidth while using up to 70 percent less energy per bit when compared to currently available technologies.
Micron expects 4GB HMC engineering samples to be available in early 2014 while volume production of both 2GB and 4GB HMC is scheduled to begin later in 2014.
Is Non-Volatile Memory The Next Craze?
A report from analysts Yole Developpement claims that MRAM/STTMRAM and PCM will lead the Emerging Non-Volatile Memory (ENVM) market and earn a combined $1.6bn by 2018. If the North Koreans have not conquered America, by 2018 then MRAM/STTMRAM and PCM will surely be the top two ENVM on the market.
Yole’s Yann de Charentenay said that their combined sales will almost double each year, with double-density chips launched every two years. So far we have only had FRAM, PCM and MRAM to play with and they were available in low-density chips to only a few players. The market was quite limited and considerably smaller than the DRAM and flash markets which had combined revenues of $50bn+ in 2012, the report said. In the next five years the scalability and chip density of those memories will be greatly improved and will spark many new applications, says the report.
ENVM will greatly improve the input/output performance of enterprise storage systems whose requirements will intensify with the growing need for web-based data supported by cloud servers, the report said. Mobile phones will increase its adoption of PCM as a substitute to flash NOR memory in MCP packages thanks to 1GB chips made available by Micron in 2012, it added. The next milestone will be the higher-density chips, expected in 2015, will allow access to smart phone applications that are quickly replacing entry-level phones.
Intel Preparing New SSDs
In addition to the recent price drop for its 320, 330 and 520 series SSDs, Intel is preparing a slight refresh scheduled to launch in Q3 and Q4 2012, according to the recently leaked roadmap at Chinese.VR-Zone.com.
The roadmap kicks off with a rather interesting entry-level 300 series that will apparently get a new 335 series update in Q3 2012. According to the roadmap, the 335 series will initially launch in 240GB capacity and get 80 and 180GB model update in Q1 2013. The new 335 series will most likely still be based on the same SF-2281 controller, be available in 2.5-inch form factor with the SATA 6Gbps interface, and will probably be paired up with a tweaked firmware and a new 20nm NAND flash memory.
Super Talent Outs New SSDs
Super Talent has announced a new line of SATA III SSDs, the Super Talent SuperNova. Aimed at the business market, SuperNova SSDs will be available in 128 and 256GB capcities.
Although it has not announced any details regarding the new SuperNova lineup in its official press release, Super Talent did note that SuperNova features high transfer speeds and “the most secure encryption” on the planet, as well as the proprietary RAISE technology that virtually eliminates unrecoverable read errors.
After some digging around we managed to find that SuperNova is based on Sandforce SF-2200 controller paired up with ONFI Synchronous MLC NAND chips that should provide enterprise level of reliability. The sequential performance is set at 555MB/s read and 525MB/s for write while random 4K performance is at 90K IOPS read and 85K IOPS write, for both 128 and 256GB models.
Micron Profits Go South
While Micron has been negotiating the takeover of Elpida, the firm’s balance sheet isn’t looking particularly healthy, with sales stagnating at $2.1bn while costs increased to $1.9bn. The firm’s net loss for the quarter was $320m, compared to a slim $75m profit in the same period last year.
Micron’s sales might have remained steady, but looking at the firm’s past three quarters paints an increasingly worrying picture for the company. According to the firm, in the nine months up to 31 May 2012 it has lost $789m on sales of $6.2bn.
Most worrying for Micron is how fast the firm’s gross margin – revenue minus the cost of sales – is falling. The firm’s figures show its gross profit has halved to $234m in the last year and the trend is mirrored in the nine month figures.
Micron could point to the harsh conditions in the DRAM market as a reason for its lackluster financials, and while the firm has embraced NAND flash memory producing Crucial branded solid state drives, the margins on those are falling fast.
Adata Outs 40MB/s UHS microSD Card
Adata has launched a 32GB UHS-1 microSD card offering 40MB/s write bandwidth.
Adata, which recently has been making a big push in the solid-state disk (SSD) drive market, has announced its first microSD cards that support the UHS-1 specification. The firm’s Premier Pro cards come in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities with the firm citing read bandwidth of 45MB/s and all important write bandwidth of 40MB/s.
The SD Card Association defined the UHS-I specification as part of its SD Version 3.01 standard, and while Adata’s new cards boast impressive speeds there is a lot of headroom left, with UHS-1 supporting bandwidths up to 104MB/s. Adata’s cards, roughly translated to the ‘X’ speed rating used on a number of memory cards, come out at 266X.
Ray Chu, product manager at Adata said, “These cards have the best read and write performance among all comparable products offered by the industry’s key players. When that is combined with the aggressive pricing options in store for this line, the result is going to be a bonanza for our customers worldwide.”