Phase Change Memory might be on the market next year

Subject: General Tech | November 30, 2012 - 01:38 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: nand, EMC, phase change memory

SSDs are not that old but already there is a challenge that must be overcome if it is to remain a viable storage medium. As Allyn has discussed many times in articles and on the podcast, as NAND process shrinks continue, the number of write cycles before failure drops which lowers the life expectancy of the drive even while it allows for high capacity chips and lower power consumption. Zahid Hussain is EMC's flash product division general manager and he is confident that his company will be able to do what Hynix, Samsung and others have so far been unable to do; work with Micron to replace the NAND chips with Phase Change Memory based chips. This type of chip is non-volatile and could also find its way into DIMMs as well. Read more at The Register.

"It is anticipated that, as NAND process geometries shrink beyond 15nm or so, the working life will fall off drastically, speed will slacken and the error checking and correction logic will become much more complicated. At that point, roughly, it is hoped, a post-NAND technology will be productised and deliver chips that are denser than flash, faster than flash, approaching DRAM speed, byte-addressable instead of block-addressable, and with a longer working life. That seems like a real big ask."

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Source: The Register

The SSD market gets passed a TRIM command

Subject: General Tech, Storage | March 7, 2012 - 01:39 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: western digital, ssd, hitachi, flash, EMC

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, which was the result of the merger of Hitachi and IBM's HDD businesses, is likely being purchased by Western Digital tomorrow for about $4.3 billion. This makes sense as WD has been using Hitachi GST as a sales partner when providing EMC with high end flash disks. This deal comes on the heels of a major sell, the SSD400S flash disk which uses Intel's 34nm SLC NAND and the SSD400S-B which utilizes the new 25nm NAND developed by Intel. Check out the specifications of the flash drives as well as the new SSD company over at The Register.

"WD is buying Hitachi GST and the acquisition is expected to be formally announced tomorrow with a condition of two years of independence for Hitachi GST - imposed by a Chinese anti-competition regulator. EMC has certified Hitachi GST's SSD400S flash disks for use in its VNX mid-range unified storage arrays, including the all-flash VNX5500-F, so WD will effectively fulfil this deal once the acquisition is announced."