With significant growth in demand for NAND flash memory, with the advent of Intel's Ultrabook form-factor, and the transition of Apple's MacBook range to slimmer form-factors that could raise demand of solid-state storage, memory makers are stepping up production of NAND flash memory. Samsung recently announced the setting up of a 12-inch NAND flash wafer production facility in China. In response to this, the other major Korean memory-maker, Hynix, indicated that its plant located in Wuxi, China, will switch from producing DRAM to NAND flash. This switch seems short-term and Hynix plans to expand the plant later, to accommodate NAND flash production. Hynix is currently a much smaller player in the NAND flash industry than Samsung.

Marvell today announced mass deployment of the Marvell 88SS9187 SATA controller fueled by high performance embedded processor technology. The 88SS9187 features a 6 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) SATA Revision 3.1 compliant host interface optimized for the fast-growing solid state drive (SSD) sector, offering many game changing benefits to the consumer, mobile and enterprise markets. A significant number of high-profile SSD manufacturers are set to deploy Marvell's newest solution immediately, with additional partners expected to integrate 88SS9187 implementations later this year.

Marvell's newest SSD controller boasts an open, world-class architecture that supports industry-standard, high-speed NAND Flash interface up to 200 MB/s per channel. The 88SS9187 also offers a groundbreaking correction capability thanks to its high performance ECC engine with Adaptive Read and Write Scheme and on-chip RAID functionality to allow use of the latest generation of NAND Flash devices in the fast-growing SSD markets.

According to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce, the following report presents a forecast of six major DRAM and NAND Flash industry trends in 2012-2015.

Trend-1: Mainstream PC DRAM Specification DDR3 to Dominate Market Until 2014

DDR3 has been the mainstream PC DRAM specification since 2011, and DRAMeXchange expects it will remain so until 2014. Although JEDEC will officially announce standards for DDR4 in 2012, DRAMeXchange is conservative as to whether the new specification will follow the historical pattern set by DDR and DDR2 and hit the market in 2014-2015, as the marginal benefit to PC performance provided by DDR4 will be limited. However, Intel will still hold decisive influence over the matter.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash solutions, today announces two new Flash Disk Module (FDM) solutions for Industrial and Embedded applications.
Already known for their IDE, SATA and USB flash disk modules; Super Talent now introduces two new FDM solutions focused on increase performance, PCIe and USB 3.0 FDM modules. Designed for Industrial and Embedded applications, Super Talent's FDM solutions provide high speed data throughput and reliability.

The new USB 3.0 FDM features a 20-pin DIP configuration, now appearing on many new motherboards, and is available in capacities of 8GB to 32GB. These USB 3.0 FDMs mount vertically and measure 32.2mm(h) x 26.2mm(w) and 4mm(t) and can hit speeds of 85MB/s Reads and 40 MB/s Writes.

Buffalo Japan announced two new lines of memory card readers that take advantage of the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface, the BSCR09U3 series, and the BSCRD04U3. The BSCR09U3 has a typical desktop form-factor, it measures 85 x 13 x 49 mm (WxDxH), weighing about 35 g. It supports a variety of media formats, including SD/SDHC/SDXC (standard, mini, and micro), MS-Duo, M2, CompactFlash, and XD Picture Card, with zero interface bottlenecks.

The BSCRD04U3, on the other hand, resembles the shape of a flat highlighter pen. It measures 33 x 15 x 69 mm, weighing 17 g. Once uncapped, it can be plugged directly to a USB 3.0 port, or extended via a cable. This reader only supports SD/SDHC/SDXC (standard, mini, and micro). Both card readers are available in black and white options. Slated for April, the BSCR09U3 is priced at 3,402 JPY (US $41.8), while the BSCRD04U3 goes for 2,826 JPY (US $34.7).

PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY") is considered a leading designer, manufacturer and a worldwide leader in DRAM Memory and Flash Memory products, has introduced the new HP v165w Flash drive of their HP authorized line. HP v165w offers durable and easy transfer of files. The HP v165w is encased in a blue shell and transparent design that gives a futuristic and edgy look to it.

The small and compact size makes it a convenient and portable storage device and enables user to plug and use it anytime and anywhere.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today unveiled its latest slim profile USB Flash drive, the DashDrive UV100. With a length of only 41 mm and a thickness of just 5.8 mm, it enters the market as an extremely compact and economical solution to those who view data portability as a day-today necessity.

The DashDrive UV100 incorporates the capless design that has proved to be a successful hallmark of ADATA Flash drives, eliminating the risk of cap loss. An integral strap hole makes the drive easy to carry on a lanyard or keychain. In a nod to the ever-increasing design requirements of the fashion-conscious, the drive boasts a diamond-cut bevel exterior, allowing owners to express their unique personal style. However, the key feature of the product may well be its highly competitive price point, which will make the UV100 an ideal option for those who use Flash drives on a daily basis and are looking for a highly portable backup drive.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced it has developed the world's smallest 128 gigabit (Gb) NAND flash memory chip currently in production. The semiconductor device can store 128 billion individual bits of information on a single silicon die 170 mm2 in size - a little more than a quarter of an inch squared, or smaller than the area covered by a U.S. penny.

The use of NAND flash memory in high tech equipment like smartphones, tablets and solid state drives (SSDs) allows advances in the full function, small form factor devices that are highly valued by consumers. Shrinking the size of NAND flash memory allows smaller, more powerful computing, communications and consumer electronics devices to be built while keeping costs low.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have concluded that solid state drives (SSDs) have a bleak future in the evolution of computing technology. They have discovered that fast flash based storage are facing come pretty glaring technology hurdles during their natural course of evolution, which they don't think it will overcome. To begin with, shrinking (miniaturizing) them, to increase capacity or decrease manufacturing costs, will severely degrade performance beyond a point, 6.5 nm silicon fab process.

The scientists studied 45 different flash chips in various sizes, which showed that scaling of latencies and error-rates are 'tolerable' enough as the technology miniaturizes only till 6.5 nm, or the year 2024, when this fab process will be common, beyond which they question the drives' viability. Beyond this point, the more capacity you squeeze into flash memory chips, the more performance degrade (latency and error-rate scale beyond tolerable scales).

Macronix International Co., Ltd., a world leading supplier in NOR Flash memory, today formally launches the first generation Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash family, the MX30LF family. An extension of Macronix's existing Serial and Parallel NOR Flash product portfolio, the new MX30LF SLC NAND family will facilitate Macronix serving embedded code and data storage markets as a total Flash memory provider.

As a leader in embedded non-volatile memories, Macronix fulfills the memory requirements of these applications ranging from consumer electronic applications like set-top box (STB), TV, digital cameras, Customer-premises equipment(CPE) and high end networking, through to industrial PC and automotive applications. Macronix has begun sampling SLC NAND products and will start trial production in 2012 Q1.

Adobe is working on a new sandboxed version of the Flash Player browser plugin for Firefox. The move will make it tougher to compromise a system's security using malicious Shockwave Flash objects. The new plugin for Firefox (and other browsers like Opera, which rely on the common Netscape Plugin Wrapper model of browser plugins), will work essentially similar to the Flash Player Google Chrome ships with, which works in a "Protected Mode". When "sandboxed" Shockwave Flash objects in webpages will work as separate processes, with much lower privileges than the actual user, the user's machine environment will be kept abstract to it. Adobe has already redesigned the browser plugin of its Reader X (PDF viewer) to work this way, and hasn't seen a significant successful exploit since November, last year.