Toshiba Memory Corporation, the world leader in memory solutions, today announced that it has begun shipping samples of embedded NAND flash memory products for automotive applications that are compliant with JEDEC UFS version 2.1. The new products meet AEC-Q100 Grade2 requirements and support a wide temperature range of -40°C to +105°C, offering the enhanced reliability capabilities that are required by increasingly complex automotive applications. The line-up meets a broad range of applications requirements with five different capacities: 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB.

The new products are embedded NAND flash memory products that integrate NAND chips fabricated with 15 nm process technology and a controller in a single package. Storage requirements for automotive applications continue to increase as systems including automotive information & entertainment systems and ADAS become more sophisticated, and UFS supports their high performance and density needs. The addition of automotive UFS expands Toshiba Memory Corporation's line-up of embedded NAND flash memory products for automotive applications, which currently includes automotive e-MMC products. Utilizing the UFS interface allows the new products to achieve sequential read of 850 MB/s and random read of 50,000 IOPS, which are approximately 2.7 times and 7.1 times faster than their current e-MMC counterparts, respectively.

SanDisk today announced the SkyHawk and SkyHawk Ultra lines of enterprise SSDs. Built in the 12 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, the drives feature PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface over U.2 or SATA-Express connections. The drives incorporate high-endurance 15 nm MLC NAND flash memory. The SkyHawk series includes 1920 GB and 3840 GB variants, and offer transfer speeds of up to 1500 MB/s reads, with up to 1700 MB/s writes; up to 250,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 47,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Its MTBF is rated at 2 million hours, and it is backed by a 5-year warranty.

The more premium SkyHawk Ultra series comes in 1600 GB and 3200 GB variants, with sequential transfer speeds of up to 1700 MB/s reads, and up to 1200 MB/s writes, up to 250,000 IOPS random reads, with up to 83,000 IOPS random writes. These drives offer nearly triple the durability of the SkyHawk (standard) series, with 1.7 DWPD (vs. 0.6 DWPD of the SkyHawk standard); although their MTBF are rated the same, at 2 million hours, and are backed by the same 5-year product warranties.

Toshiba company OCZ today announced the new VX500 line of performance SSDs in the 2.5-inch form-factor, featuring SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drives are based on a new-generation platform by OCZ's parent company Toshiba. The drives combine Toshiba TC358790 controller with 15 nm MLC NAND flash memory chips by Toshiba. The drives come in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, and offer price/GB comparable to TLC NAND flash-based drives; yet with performance comparable to high-end MLC NAND flash drives.

All four variants offer up to 550 MB/s sequential reads. The 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB variants offer up to 485 MB/s, 510 MB/s, 515 MB/s, and 515 MB/s of sequential writes, respectively. Random access performance is rated around 90,000 IOPS reads, with up to 65,000 IOPS writes. The 128 GB variant is priced at US $63.99, the 256 GB variant at $92.79, the 512 GB variant at $152.52, and the 1 TB variant at $337.06. The drives are backed by 5-year warranty. Acronis TrueImage disk cloning software comes included.Read our review of the VX500 512GB here.

Here's the first picture of an Urbane 610 SSD by Klevv, in the flesh. The performance-segment SSD is built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and serves up 560 MB/s of sequential reads, with up to 530 MB/s sequential writes (480 GB and 960 GB variants) or up to 360 MB/s writes (240 GB variant). It combines Toshiba 15 nm MLC NAND flash memory, with Phison PS3110-S10 controllers.

Lite-On unveiled the Mu-II line of consumer SSDs. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, the drives come in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB. The drives feature Toshiba-made 15 nm TLC NAND flash memory. The 480 GB variant offers sequential speeds of up to 555 MB/s reads with 520 MB/s writes; the 240 GB and 480 GB variants, and up to 500 MB/s reads with up to 360 MB/s writes for the 120 GB variant. Standard features include TRIM and NCQ. The drives will be backed by 3-year warranties.

Plextor unveiled the M6S Plus series performance-segment consumer SSDs. A successor to the M6S series launched as recently as February 2016, the M6S Plus features 15 nm Toggle NAND flash chips from Toshiba, instead of the 19 nm ones found on the original M6S. The controller remains unchanged - Marvell 88SS9188. The drives are built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

The drives come in three capacities - 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB, featuring DDR3 DRAM caches of 256 MB, 512 MB, and 768 MB, respectively. All three models offer sequential read performance of up to 520 MB/s, with sequential writes of up to 300 MB/s, 420 MB/s, and 440 MB/s, depending on the capacity. Their 4K random access performance numbers similarly vary, at up to 88,000 IOPS, up to 90,000 IOPS, and up to 94,000 IOPS, respectively. The company didn't announce pricing.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the HK4 Series, a new enterprise 6Gbit/s SATA solid state drive (SSD) series, designed for read-intensive and value-endurance workloads. The HK4 Series is Toshiba's first enterprise SSD to embed 15 nm MLC NAND flash memory for enterprise and data center applications, including low latency tuned for high quality of service (QoS).

The read-intensive HK4R Series is available in capacities up to 1.92 TB with low operating power and is suitable for enterprise applications such as web servers, files servers, media streaming, video-on-demand, search engines and warm data storage. The HK4E value-endurance drive offers an endurance level of three DWPD3 and a capacity up to 1.6 TB. It is well suited for data centers and mixed workload applications.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., (TAEC), a committed leader that collaborates with technology companies to create breakthrough designs, today announced the launch of a class of e-MMCTM embedded NAND flash memory products that are among the world's smallest.The new products integrate NAND chips fabricated with Toshiba's cutting-edge 15 nm process technology and a controller to manage basic control functions for NAND applications into a single package.

Fully compliant with the latest JEDEC e-MMC standard, the new chips are designed for application in a wide range of digital consumer products, including smartphones, tablet PCs and wearable devices. Sample shipment of the 16 gigabyte (GB) products begins today, with 8GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB products to follow. By utilizing the 15nm process technology, the new product's package size is approximately 26 percent smaller than comparable Toshiba products and offers faster read/write performance due to improvements in basic chip performance and controller optimization. The read speed is approximately eight percent faster (max.), while the write speed is approximately 20 percent faster (max.).

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced the availability of its 1Z-nanometer (nm) technology, the most advanced NAND flash process node in the world. The 15 nm technology will ramp on both two bits-per-cell (X2) and three bits-per-cell (X3) NAND flash memory architectures with production ramp to begin in the second half of 2014.

"We are thrilled to continue our technology leadership with the industry's most advanced flash memory process node, enabling us to deliver the world's smallest and most cost effective 128 gigabit chips," said Dr. Siva Sivaram, senior vice president, memory technology, SanDisk. "We are delighted that these new chips will allow us to further differentiate and expand our portfolio of NAND flash solutions."