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.
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I hope this is what we need to drive down prices of the current gen SSD's. I can only imagine the impact it will have on the new smart phones too, no more BS, give us 32gb on smartphones as standard!
I hope this is what we need to drive down prices of the current gen SSD's. I can only imagine the impact it will have on the new smart phones too, no more BS, give us 32gb on smartphones as standard!
That's exactly what I was thinking. Hooray for Intel and Micron!
I feel like its only fair to point out that there are fewer typos and grammatical errors on Tom's lately. Not that articles should be judged by those factors but since they seem to be here: good job lately, Tom's writers!
Awesome. This might bring the 32/64GB SSD's to the Consumer marker, hm?
I'm dreaming more about 128 GB SSD's that truly and comfortably (AND CHEAPLY) can be used as a boot drive.
That's what she said.
If this creates a 50% drop in SSD's across the board who adopt the 25nm chips I will definitely consider upgrading my hard drives.
on a different site (not sure if im allowed to post name) they said "Objective Analysis notes the manufacturing cost of the 25nm chips will be approximately $.50 per gigabyte. This is a substantial decrease from the estimated $1.75 per gigabyte cost of 45nm flash."
hello new flashdrive. i could use both the space, speed, and price improvement. now all i need is for USB 3.0 to go into mass circulation, but that wont happen for some time.
I have a feeling prices will not drop that fast for a few months after introduction. Way to much demand out there vs supply.
on a different site (not sure if im allowed to post name) they said "Objective Analysis notes the manufacturing cost of the 25nm chips will be approximately $.50 per gigabyte. This is a substantial decrease from the estimated $1.75 per gigabyte cost of 45nm flash."
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!
every year I wait for the prices of SSD's to drive down. I hope I'm not disappointed again
SSDs are way overpriced..this would want to help
Technically speaking, this cuts the factory costs about half! I hope one day they will compete prices with hard drives, so I can get myself an SSD.
they'll dial back actual release to maximize profits...so I wouldn't see prices come down just yet
As much as I would like for this 25nm manufacturing process to bring down SSDs, it's not gonna happen any time soon. Intel will be milking the 32nm flash chips for as much as they can before releasing the 25nm flash chips to retail.
Just because its cheaper for them per wafer, doesn't mean cheaper for consumers. It simply means more profits for Intel, especially if this new product is faster than the old ones, it will demand a premium higher price.
hello new flashdrive. i could use both the space, speed, and price improvement. now all i need is for USB 3.0 to go into mass circulation, but that wont happen for some time.
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...
So for flash drives to really hit a cheaper price they would need to be what 8nm ? 25nm is getting pretty small and they still are going to cost a decent amount for anything even close to a 1TB drive... (I like the advantage of flash drives but OEM's are not going to pack them in a machine until they can get them for about the same price, maybe a little less capacity but 128GB's is pretty small for a computer)
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)
Hmmm....small, compact, lightweight, efficient, and technologically advanced. Where have I heard that before? I know! The Sony transistor radio! But that was a long long time ago.
Hopefully they're products don't implode on themselves if they get any smaller. =)
I remember once reading an article saying that we will never reach 40nm on silicon because of the physical limits.
Awesome.
I remember once reading an article saying that we will never reach 40nm on silicon because of the physical limits.Awesome.
On this page it mentions something about a gate length of 5nm.... thats crazy lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_nanometer
I think I remember reading about that too but I think they where talking about a lithography limit when they where talking about 40nm (At least thats the first though that jumps into my mind it could be complete BS but it could be right too lol)
I wonder how they plan to retain the lifespan of the NAND. Process shrinks significantly reduce NAND cell life.
And apple will continue to charge $100 for an 8gb upgrade on the iPad
Should also reduce power requirements.
See the battery on mobile devices last longer as a result.
I think that the minituarization aspect of dev at this point is somewhat over rated. While it is important, and a ~30% increase in useable size (65 to 45 nm) is huge, once we hit the limit its not like dev will stop. There is so much room for architectural advancements, and once we do hit the wall we will start seeing massive leaps and bounds in that as well.
Well the only thing that will bring prices down is competition, so we need more companies with 22-25nm manufacturing technology untill we will see "real bargain" sdds'
But most propably it will not take long until we have several companies that are near 20nm production soon enough. But it will take some years more until these are "market" stuff. But this may be one of the fist years when normal customers can buy 64Gb ssd without taking bank loan and even 128Gb may be possible this year if you have 150-300$ for hard drive.
With that kind of capacity, if you have a 3.5" form factor, I wonder how many TB you could get in a single SSD?
Well in 2.5 inch they have put 512 Gb with older technology, so it will be something like 1.5 to 2.5 TeraByte that you can put to 3.5" form factor... at least.
The problem is, who would like to pay 50000$ for it ;-)
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/02 [...] -computex/
http://www.slashgear.com/a-data-xp [...] e-0128445/
Well in 2.5 inch they have put 512 Gb with older technology, so it will be something like 1.5 to 2.5 TeraByte that you can put to 3.5" form factor... at least.The problem is, who would like to pay 50000$ for it ;-)http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/02 [...] -computex/http://www.slashgear.com/a-data-xp [...] e-0128445/
At that kind of price what I would want is a 3.5 inch drive that is RAM with a built in rechargeable battery that is constantly recharged from the PS, the battery would be for power outages and ideally would last a week or two, of course a drive like this would have to be teamed up with a normal hard drive for back up in case the computer is with out power for an extended period.