According to TPU's SSD database, the Microsoft Z1000 M.2 22110 form factor solid-state drive launched back in 2020—last week, well-known hardware tipster, yuuki_ans, leaked a set of photos and specifications. Their March 7 social media post showcases close-ups of a potential enterprise product—sporting a CNEX Labs CNX-2670AA-CB2T controller, Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer eTLC NAND flash dies and 1 GB Micron MT40A1G8SA-075:E DDR4 RAM cache. The mysterious storage device appears to be an engineering sample (PV1.1)—an attached label lists a possible manufacturing date of May 18, 2020, but its part number and serial code are redacted in yuuki's set of photos. PCIe specifications are not disclosed, but experts reckon that a 4.0 standard is present here (given the prototype's age).

The long form factor and presence of a CNEX Labs controller suggest that Microsoft has readied a 960 GB capacity model for usage in data servers. Unoccupied spaces on the board provide evidence of different configurations. Extra BGA mounting points could introduce another DRAM chip, and there is enough room for additional capacitors—via solder pads on both sides of the Z1000's PCB. It is speculated that 2 TB and 4 TB variants exist alongside the leaked 960 GB example—a "broad portfolio" of finalized Z1000 products could be in service right now, but the wider public is unlikely to see these items outside of Microsoft facilities.

For many years, TEAMGROUP has been developing high-quality products for industrial use and automation applications. In response to the growing market for 5G applications, the company this year is focusing on the new market demands of 5G infrastructure, AloT edge computing, and autonomous driving, as well as in-vehicle computing and environmental safety control applications. Today, TEAMGROUP is announcing its 745 SSD Series, which features the 5th generation BiCS NAND flash memory. It's a comprehensive industrial solution that comes with high capacities, low latencies, and high durability for the various application of industrial market.

The TEAMGROUP 745 SSD Series uses the new 112-layer 3D TLC and the latest 5th generation BiCS NAND flash memory, giving it approximately 40% more capacity and 50% better I/O performance than BiCS4 SSDs. This makes it fully suitable for the high-capacity, low-latency transmission requirements of edge computing. To meet the needs of a wide range of industrial applications, the 745 SSD Series is available in a variety of form factors with mainstream specifications, including models with SATA and PCIe Gen3x4 interfaces and capacities from 128 GB to 2 TB, offering the industry a variety of professional options. The 745 SSD Series is also equipped with SLC cache technology, which improves SSD read and write efficiency and supports high AI load for smart manufacturing and autonomous driving, while the AES 256-bit encryption prevents data security concerns and ensures safety and stability of the SSD.

Total NAND Flash revenue reached US$14.5 billion in 3Q20, a 0.3% increase QoQ, while total NAND Flash bit shipment rose by 9% QoQ, but the ASP fell by 9% QoQ, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. The market situation in 3Q20 can be attributed to the rising demand from the consumer electronics end as well as the recovering smartphone demand before the year-end peak sales season. Notably, in the PC market, the rise of distance education contributed to the growing number and scale of Chromebook tenders, but the increase in the demand for Chromebook devices has not led to a significant increase in NAND Flash consumption because storage capacity is rather limited for this kind of notebook computer. Moreover, clients in the server and data center segments had aggressively stocked up on components and server barebones during 2Q20 due to worries about the impact of the pandemic on the supply chain. Hence, their inventories reached a fairly high level by 3Q20. Clients are now under pressure to control and reduce their inventories during this second half of the year. With them scaling back procurement, the overall NAND Flash demand has also weakened, leading to a downward turn in the contract prices of most NAND Flash products.

The NAND Flash industry benefitted from strong demand for PCs and servers in 2Q20 as the COVID-19 pandemic caused a demand surge for cloud services and technologies that are related to working from home, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. This, in turn, kept demand high for SSDs. However, the smartphone and consumer electronics markets had not recovered from the impact of the pandemic. The demand for these products therefore declined compared to the previous quarter. In 2Q20, total NAND Flash bit shipment and ASP both experienced a minor increase of about 3% QoQ, while NAND Flash revenue reached US$14.5 billion, a 6.5% increase QoQ.

Seagate, a world leader in data solutions, today announced two new additions to its solid state Nytro portfolio which delivers optimal endurance and quality of service. Nytro 3032 SAS SSD and Nytro 1360 SATA SSD are designed to meet the needs of a wide range of enterprise applications.

The next generation of high-capacity SAS SSD from Seagate, Nytro 3032 SAS SSD delivers ultra-fast, reliable, and secure performance. The drive has an SAS 12 Gb/s interface and it also offers dual ports for speeds of up to 2200 MB/s and up to 10 DWPD bringing consistent and easily scalable performance to write-intensive, mixed, and read-intensive enterprise workloads. The Seagate Nytro 3032 SAS SSD delivers up to 15 TB in a 2.5-inch x 15 mm form factor and boosting enterprise storage density to keep up with data growth.

Toshiba today introduced the XG6 series SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, the drives take advantage of the NVMe 1.3a protocol, and succeed the XG5 series from 2017. The drives implement Toshiba's new 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash dubbed BiCS Flash, which went into mass-production in Q1-2018. Available in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB capacities, the drives offer sequential transfer rates of up to 3,180 MB/s reads, with up to 2,960 MB/s writes. Also on offer are 4K random access transfer rates of up to 355,000 IOPS reads, with up to 365,000 IOPS writes. The drives are expected to be backed by 5-year warranties, when they go on sale at prices competitive with the likes of Samsung's 970 EVO series.

Western Digital Corp. today announced successful development of its second-generation, four-bits-per-cell architecture for 3D NAND. Implemented for the company's 96-layer BiCS4 device, the QLC technology delivers the industry's highest 3D NAND storage capacity of 1.33 terabits (Tb) in a single chip. BiCS4 was developed at the joint venture flash manufacturing facility in Yokkaichi, Japan with our partner Toshiba Memory Corporation. It is sampling now and volume shipments are expected to commence this calendar year beginning with consumer products marketed under the SanDisk brand. The company expects to deploy BiCS4 in a wide variety of applications from retail to enterprise SSDs.

Even as researchers expect 3D NAND flash to achieve the 140-layer level by 2021, technology and manufacturers still have to take all the intermediate steps before we're actually there. In that sense, Western Digital has just announced that they're well on their way in producing 96-layer 3D NAND and distributing it to customers. For now, the memory will be used for inexpensive storage solutions, but the idea is to eventually ramp um production for other, higher-performance products.

Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan kept the production ramp-up (and the expectation of BiCS4 production eventually surpassing BiCS3) under wraps, but it seems all is going well with the production. He added that "(...) if you look to where we at from a yield curve perspective, because [BICS4] is not too mature, we are very pleased with where we are. Because once you get to a certain point, you can project where you are going to end at (based on cycles of learning, etc)." As announced by Western Digital before, it's likely this initial production run is delivering 256 Gb capacity chips, with improvements in yields to allow for increased capacity down the road, eventually, up to 1 Tb capacity per chip.