Hasta La Gadget!

The more the merrier, right? Cutesy sayings aside, the world is gearing up to say “hello” to yet another player in the NAND flash memory market, as Japan’s own Elpida Memory (which currently specializes in DRAM) will be joining the fray in the coming months. Said outfit stated this week that it has entered into an alliance with Spansion (the former flash memory joint venture between Fujitsu and AMD), with Spansion licensing its NAND flash intellectual property to Elpida as part of the deal. If all goes to plan, Elpida will begin producing flash chips at its western Japan plant “as early as next year,” with some of the output being funneled directly to Spansion. ‘Course, with the explosion in smartphone popularity, it’s not shocking to see a DRAM stalwart looking for ways to dip its toes in that high-demand NAND stuff, and as consumers, you certainly won’t find us kvetching about the competition.

Continue reading Elpida and Spansion move from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘engaged,’ look to conquer NAND universe

Elpida and Spansion move from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘engaged,’ look to conquer NAND universe originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 07:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPhone 4 is an even bigger upgrade than you thought.

When Steve Jobs introduces new iPhones, he skips talking about memory capacity and processor speeds: The idea is that this is an automatic computer that just works. But you’d think he would’ve at least bragged that the iPhone 4 has significantly more memory than previous iPhones and even the iPad.

Our friend Arnold Kim of MacRumors has verified that the iPhone 4 contains 512 MB of RAM, up from 256 MB in the current iPhone 3GS and the iPad. It turns out that Apple mentioned this during a session with developers at last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The session (#147) is downloadable for free for registered Apple developers.

512 MB of RAM would explain why the new iMovie app only works on the iPhone 4. It would also suggest that multitasking (coming with iOS 4) and general usability will be much smoother on an iPhone 4 compared to Apple’s other mobile offerings.

So let’s run down the list: a memory increase, the higher-resolution (960-by-640-pixel) display, a slimmer profile, a front-facing video camera, a 5-megapixel camera and 802.11N Wi-Fi. These are all improvements that make buying a current iPhone 3GS, even at its discounted rate, look like a sucker’s deal. No wonder Apple received 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders on day one.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

See Also:

• Prices Slashed on Current iPhone, But Don't Buy One
• Showdown: iPhone 4 vs. HTC Evo 4G
• Photo Gallery: Hands-On With the iPhone 4
• Apple Unveils High-Resolution, Videoconferencing iPhone 4
• Why the iPhone 4 Camera Is So Promising

Leave it to Toshiba to make even the latest smartphones feel somewhat undernourished. Quadrupling the current high-end standard of 32GB of embedded memory, the Japanese company has announced an all-new 128GB slab of storage, built on a 32nm production process. It’s somehow managed to fit sixteen 8GB NAND chips, plus their controller, inside a 1.4mm tall structure, and samples are about to exit the factory doors this September. A 64GB variant will also be making an appearance, with both scheduled to enter mass production sometime during the fourth quarter. Should go pretty nicely with that 2GHz beastphone Moto is planning, don’t you think?

Continue reading Toshiba cooks up 128GB NAND flash for next-gen phones and PMPs

Toshiba cooks up 128GB NAND flash for next-gen phones and PMPs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Let it sink in, 20 nanometers. It wasn’t that long ago when 45-nm manufacturing processes were all the rage. Now we’ve got Samsung following Toshiba with a sub-25nm flash memory announcement all its own. Samsung’s 20-nm class 32Gb (gigabit) MLC NAND is sampling now, however, for use in embedded memory solutions and SD memory cards ranging from 4GB to 64GB. In addition to increasing densities and decreasing manufacturing costs, Samsung’s 20-nm class NAND is claimed to be more reliable and 30 percent faster than the 30-nm MLC chips forming the core of its existing 8GB and higher SD cards. That translates to cheaper class 10 (20MBps read, 10MBps write) SD cards when these ship to consumers later this year — always a good thing.

Update: There’s a chance that Samsung is playing fast and loose with words here. It repeatedly says “20-nm class” without specifying the actual node size. Is it 20nm, 22nm, 27nm? We’re digging for details and will update this post when we have them.

Update 2: Samsung’s response: “Unfortunately, we are not disclosing the actual process node for our memory devices. Thank you in advance for your understanding.” Yeah, we understand: Samsung’s process node is likely larger than the 25nm threshold set by Intel and Micron.

Samsung first with 20-nm NAND Flash: cheaper, faster SD cards on the way (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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