Intel, Micron Introduce 25nm Flash Memory
Intel and Micron officially announced 25nm process technology.
Intel and Micron Technology announced today that a new era in storage, smartphones, and media players has begun with the introduction of 25-nanometer NAND technology. Not only is this the smallest process for NAND flash memory, but currently the smallest process for semiconductor technology in general. Who said bigger was better?
The joint venture between Intel and Micron will be manufactured by IM Flash Technologies. The 25nm process will cram a whopping 8 GB of storage on a single NAND chip. Intel's announcement today paints a pretty picture on the NAND's actual size: measuring just 167mm2, it's small enough to fit through the hole in the middle of a CD, but packs 10 times the data capacity of the disc.
With that said, manufacturers can cram more storage into their devices, or use the extra room to throw in a new feature. In any case, the number of chips to provide the same amount of storage space has been cut down to half the load. As an example, a 256 GB solid-state drive used 64 NAND chips now only requires 32. A 16 GB flash card now only need two chips, whereas a 32 GB smartphone now only needs four.
Tom Rampone, vice president and general manager, Intel NAND Solutions Group, said that the new 25nm processing should speed up the adaption of solid-state drives. "Through our continued investment in IMFT, we're delivering leadership technology and manufacturing that enable the most cost-effective and reliable NAND memory," he said.
Currently Intel is sampling the 25nm, 8 GB NAND, and plans to kick it into high gear with mass production in Q2 2010.
That's what she said.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Hooray for Intel and Micron!
That's what she said.
Although much cheaper, I think the 1.75 per GB is the retail price, not manufacturing cost, which could be difficult, I still expect prices to be somewhat high, although any advancement or price reduction is a good start!
Flash drive? No no... Not flash drive, sir/ma'am--Main drive. I could care less about a faster flash drive. If my installation of Windows 7 can run ten times as fast (since EVERYTHING would essentially feel as if it's running in RAM), I could plug up a mechanical drive for back-up through USB 3.0 :-)...
Not dissing you at all...just elaborating on the true benefits...
Don't get me wrong this is great news and its awesome for Intel and Micron to be doing this!!! Congrats!!!
I still think the best place for this would be some custom version of Windows that will just use the flash drive to boot and for swap. That way something like 64GB's would be plenty of space. Then you could have your 1TB cheap drive for media files and game installs (although it would be nice if the OS also cached some of those files so your programs load faster like a version of Ready Boost hmmm maybe it could partition the drive to use what ever for swap and OS then load as many of your most used programs on the flash drive, again like Ready Boost lol)