Samsung says it has developed a 1.8-inch 64Gbyte flash-solid state drive (SSD) which is based on an 8Gbit single-level-cell (SLC) NAND flash device.
The read and write performances have been increased by 20 per cent and 60 per cent respectively over the 32Gbyte flash-SSD Samsung introduced last year. This makes the solid state drive a more feasible alternative to traditional magnetic disk drives.
Hard disk replacement in the PC market is an important market for NAND flash memory suppliers such as Samsung, Intel, Micron and Spansion. Estimates suggest the market for solid state drives could reach $200m this year and are projected to increase to $6.8bn by 2010.
Intended or use in notebook PCs, the flash drive is designed as a drop-in replacement for a hard disk drive.
Samsung plans to start mass production of the 1.8”-type 64GB flash-SSD in the second quarter of this year.