JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the availability of JESD216: Serial Flash Discoverable Parameters (SFDP) for Serial NOR Flash. Widely anticipated by software engineers, the SFDP will allow Serial Flash manufacturers to embed a standard description of important device characteristics inside the Flash chip.

Users can read the description and obtain critical information about the functional characteristics and capabilities of SFDP compliant Flash memory devices, which will enable user applications such as mobile phones, set-top boxes, HDTVs, PC/NB motherboards, or any system that needs to support multiple Serial NOR Flash device types, to configure themselves to handle various Serial Flash implementations.

Elpida Memory, Inc., the Japan-based third largest Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) maker in the world, today announced it had completed development of the industry's first 25-nanometer (nm) process 4-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM. The new chip is also the smallest 4-gigabit DRAM. The new cutting-edge smallest available 4-gigabit chip uses ultra fine-width 25nm process migration technology. Back in May, Elpida finished development of a 2-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM using the advanced 25nm process and began sample shipments in July.

By using ultra-fine process technology the 4-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM becomes a more energy efficient chip and achieves higher productivity. As a 4-gigabit product, its density is double that of Elpida's 2-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM based on the same process node. The newly developed 4-gigabit DRAM enhances productivity by about 45% compared with Elpida's 30nm 4-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM. Compared with this same 30nm DDR3, it reduces operating current by about 25-30% and standby current by about 30-50%. It has also realized the industry's highest speed data transfer rate.

Intel Corporation announced today its latest solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel Solid-State Drive 710 Series, a purpose-built Multi-Level Cell (MLC) data center SSD and replacement for the Intel X25-E Extreme SSD. While the Intel X25-E was based on more expensive but highly reliable Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, the Intel SSD 710 uses compute-quality Intel 25-nanomenter (nm) MLC NAND flash memory with Intel High Endurance Technology (HET) to deliver the endurance and performance necessary for data center, financial services, embedded, Internet portal, search engine and other demanding storage and server applications, but at a greater value.

"The Intel SSD 710 Series gives enterprise data center and embedded users extreme endurance and performance, enabled by Intel's High Endurance Technology based on Intel 25nm MLC NAND technology," said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "Intel SSDs are widely deployed in the data center due to their performance, reliability and value. Our latest SSD product family offers more than 30 times the write endurance of our current MLC SSDs, plus improved performance and new features, such as power-loss data protection and surplus arrays of NAND for enhanced reliability."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today introduced the SanDisk Memory Vault, the first product in a new category of devices that are designed for long-term data preservation. SanDisk announced the device today as part of a comprehensive new suite of retail products.

The SanDisk Memory Vault is a photo album for the digital age that allows consumers to preserve images in one reliable location. The device connects to a computer's USB port for easy drag-and-drop functionality and features a sleek, ruggedized, metallic design that looks great on any desktop and fits into any drawer.

Micron Technology, Inc., today introduced the highest-density Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) NOR memory available, launching 1 gigabit (Gb), 512 megabit (Mb) and 256Mb products in both 1.8V and 3V power supply voltages. Employing state-of-the-art 65nm process technology, the N25Q product family offers the highest-speed quad I/O in the industry and a full set of advanced features and small packages that improve overall system performance and time-to-market in networking, set-top boxes, automotive and a wide range of industrial, computing and consumer applications.

Extending the company's legacy of memory leadership, Micron's new SPI NOR product line balances customers' needs for cost-effective solutions at higher densities while ensuring compatibility among future chipsets. Micron's long-term commitment to customers in the embedded markets is reinforced by Micron's Product Longevity Program (PLP) - a 10-year commitment to provide stable memory architectures for customer designs. The new N25Q products will be offered as part of this program to provide design assurance for its PLP customers.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced the development of 32 gigabyte (GB) double data rate-3 (DDR3) registered dual Inline memory modules (RDIMMs) that use three dimensional (3D) through silicon via (TSV) package technology.

Samsung's advanced 30 nanometer (nm) class technology leverages module performance and power features to deliver a substantially greener memory solution than the preceding 40nm-class based modules. Engineering samples have been released for evaluation.

SMART Modular Technologies (WWH), Inc., a leading independent manufacturer of solid-state storage products and memory modules, today announced the Optimus solid-state drive (SSD) for enterprise storage applications. Featuring a native Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 6Gb/s interface and up to 1.6 TB usable capacity, Optimus is the industry's highest capacity and fastest SAS multi-level cell (MLC) SSD. Delivering high performance, endurance, and reliability, the costeffective Optimus SSD satisfies the demands of I/O intensive, web-facing, and cloud-based applications in today's IT infrastructure.

Optimus was developed using SMART's extensive experience in flash technology, SAS firmware, and enterprise storage. SMART's world-class manufacturing and accomplished enterprise organization ensures that the Optimus SSD, as well as SMART's business and support processes, will meet the needs of the most demanding enterprise storage customers.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced worldwide retail availability of the Special Edition Arctic White Vengeance Low Profile memory.

The Special Edition Arctic White Vengeance LP memory operates at a 1.35V and is ideal for ultra-quiet systems and other low-voltage applications. It consists of two rigorously-screened 4GB DDR3 DRAM modules, guaranteed to operate at 1600MHz with a tested latency of 9-9-9-24. The Vengeance low-profile heat spreader has a reduced height of 1.03" (26.25mm) and is designed for high-performance systems with extra-large CPU coolers, small form factor system builds, or any other space-constrained application where standard Vengeance memory may not fit.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced availability in limited quantities of a new 1.5V 8GB Dominator GT DDR3 memory kit with an aggressive timing specification.

The new 8GB dual-channel DDR3 kit is guaranteed to operate at 2133MHz at a memory voltage of 1.5V, and with a groundbreaking timing specification of CL9-11-9. With latency settings this low, the Dominator GT modules have the most aggressive timing specification of any 2x4GB 2133MHz 1.5V memory kit available today.

GeIL (Golden Emperor Industries Ltd.) rolled out two new lines of DDR3 desktop memory targering the gamer-enthusiast segment, the Enhance Corsa and Evo Corsa. Interestingly, these lines don't include triple-channel kits, but quad-channel ones consisting of four modules, aside from the usual dual-channel kits. Gearing up for the Sandy Bridge-E market early, I see. Among the two lines, the Enhance Corsa consists of bang-for-buck kits with DDR3-1333 MHz and DDR3-1600 MHz.

The USP here is that the 1333 MHz kits will pack an Intel XMP profile that runs the modules at 1500 MHz with CL9 timings, and DRAM voltage of 1.5V; while the DDR3-1600 MHz ones will pack a XMP profile that runs them at 1700 MHz with CL9 timings and 1.5V. Evo Corsa comes in dual and quad-channel kits, consisting of 2 GB or 4 GB modules, making up 4 GB or 8 GB dual-channel; and 8 GB or 16 GB quad-channel kits on offer.

Toshiba Corporation and SanDisk Corporation today celebrated the opening of Fab 5, the third 300mm wafer NAND fabrication facility at Toshiba's Yokkaichi Operations in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

Consumer demand for smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices continues to fuel strong global demand for NAND flash memory. Toshiba began the construction of Fab 5 in July 2010, and the new facility, equipped with manufacturing equipment funded by Toshiba and SanDisk, started volume production in July 2011. Fab 5 currently uses 24 nanometer (nm) process technology and its first wafer outs will be in August. In time, the fab will transition to more advanced process generations, starting with recently announced 19nm technology, the world's smallest, most advanced process node.

Japanese cooling expert Scythe is expanding the product portfolio by new Kama Rack Series. Kama Rack Multi-Functional Panel allows the useful utilization of available 5,25 and 3,5 inch bays of the PC Chassis by adding many helpful new features to the front panel.

The idea behind the product is the hassle of frequent data-transfers as well as backups in the digital life. Saving, securing and moving of corporate and private data usually requiring several different devices to move or secure data from source A to media drive B. These media could be flash drives, memory cards, USB Drives as well as Hard Drives and Solid State Disks.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, announced its latest product offering aimed at satisfying the needs of extreme gamers. In an industry first, the company has launched the single 8GB XPG Gaming Series DDR3L 1333G Desktop overclocking memory. With a high density of 8GB and low voltage of only 1.35V, it is anticipated to provide excellent system performance and overclocking capabilities to meet the requirements of power users and overclockers.

ADATA DRAM product planning department project manager Alex Wu explained, "With the popularity of 64-bit operating systems, high-density memory is a prerequisite in many gamers' minds. We are the first to launch DDR3L 1333G high-density 8GB memory modules, achieved in the XPG Gaming Series". He further stated: "This product adopts a 1.35 volt design, to offer gamers excellent stability and efficiency and also reduce waste heat and power consumption costs". The XPG Gaming Series DDR3L 1333G desktop overclocking memory features high density and low voltage, helping gamers achieve the ultimate in system effectiveness. At the same time, the reduced power consumption leads to lower carbon emissions, resulting in greater environmental sustainability.

German boutique memory maker Exceleram announced the new Black&White series of DDR3 memory. The name originates from the modules having black PCBs and white heatspreaders. The first of its kind is a dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz 8 GB (2x 4 GB) kit. With a module voltage of 1.5V, the modules can run at DDR3-1600 MHz speeds with timings of 9-9-9-24T. Backed by a 10-year warranty, the new kit is said to be available next week.

For the first time, scientists at IBM Research have demonstrated that a relatively new memory technology, known as phase-change memory (PCM), can reliably store multiple data bits per cell over extended periods of time. This significant improvement advances the development of low-cost, faster and more durable memory applications for consumer devices, including mobile phones and cloud storage, as well as high-performance applications, such as enterprise data storage.

With a combination of speed, endurance, non-volatility and density, PCM can enable a paradigm shift for enterprise IT and storage systems within the next five years. Scientists have long been searching for a universal, non-volatile memory technology with far superior performance than flash - today's most ubiquitous non-volatile memory technology. The benefits of such a memory technology would allow computers and servers to boot instantaneously and significantly enhance the overall performance of IT systems. A promising contender is PCM that can write and retrieve data 100 times faster than flash, enable high storage capacities and not lose data when the power is turned off. Unlike flash, PCM is also very durable and can endure at least 10 million write cycles, compared to current enterprise-class flash at 30,000 cycles or consumer-class flash at 3,000 cycles. While 3,000 cycles will out live many consumer devices, 30,000 cycles are orders of magnitude too low to be suitable for enterprise applications (see chart for comparisons).

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced two product line additions to its highly successful Ballistix high-performance memory: Crucial Ballistix Tactical and Crucial Ballistix Elite lines. Building on the recent successful launch of the Crucial Ballistix Sport memory, these new product lines create a comprehensive high-performance memory portfolio addressing the needs of a broad range of users across performance memory segments.

Whether casual enthusiast or hardcore gamer, the expanded Ballistix portfolio now provides a distinct choice of performance memory solutions and is available in a variety of speeds and densities, along with differentiated product features. The complete line of Ballistix memory features a new logo treatment and updated heat spreader designs, as well as a full range of products from low latency DDR2-800MHz up to high-speed DDR3-2133MHz. Additionally, 4GB densities will be available in DDR3-1600MHz, -1866MHz, and -2000MHz modules.

EVGA released a new non-reference design graphics card based on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (part: 025-P3-1579-AR), boasting of twice the memory amount, at 2560 MB (2.5 GB). The 2.5 GB of GDDR5 memory is installed over a 320-bit wide memory interface, with a memory clock speed of 950 MHz (3.80 GHz effective), providing a memory bandwidth of 152 GB/s. The added memory could improve performance on HD gaming with 120 Hz refresh-rates (for flicker-free stereo 3D). The core is clocked at 732 MHz, with the 480 CUDA cores running at 1464 MHz. The card uses EVGA's in-house design GF110 PCB, that is shorter than NVIDIA's reference design. Its cooler resembles that of the GTX 560 Ti, and is designed to be quieter. Display outputs include two DVI, and one each of HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort. EVGA's GTX 570 HD 2.5 GB is priced at US $399.99 at EVGA's online store.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today expanded its Lightning(R) Enterprise Flash Drive (EFD) family with six new 2.5-inch 6Gb SAS (6 gigabits per second Serial Attached SCSI) models. The Lightning products are part of the new Enterprise Storage Solutions (ESS) division that SanDisk created following its recent acquisition of Pliant Technology.

The new drives include three SLC (single-level cell) flash drives with capacities of 100 gigabytes (GB), 200GB and 400GB; and three MLC (multi-level cell) flash drives with capacities of 200GB, 400GB and 800GB. The new drives extend SanDisk's position as the industry leader in EFD performance, performance predictability and reliability. SanDisk also confirmed today that HP has qualified and integrated the new Lightning 6Gb SAS drives into its HP Qualified storage drive offerings.

Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced the DRAM industry's first-ever use of high-k metal gate (HKMG) technology to develop a 2-gigabit DDR2 Mobile RAM (LPDDR2) at the 40nm-class DRAM node.

HKMG is technology that uses insulator film with a high dielectric constant (abbreviated to "high-k," a semiconductor industry measure of how much charge a material can hold) in the transistor gate to reduce current leakage and improve transistor performance. Metal gate electrodes that are required for the high-k dielectrics process are also used. Some makers of logic semiconductors have started to use HKMG, but higher heat treatment temperatures after HKMG formation and complicated DRAM structural characteristics have prevented consistent application in the DRAM fabrication process. Elpida, however, has managed to lower the heat treatment load and overcome certain memory device structural complications.

TEAM Group, of the TEAM Xtreem fame, showed us its latest generation of ultra-high end DDR3 memory modules for overclocking. The theme for this year is LV (low-voltage) modules, which can do their rated DRAM speeds at 1.35V voltage. We begin with TEAM Xtreem DDR3-2400 MHz and TEAM Xtreem DDR3-2000 MHz, which come in 2 GB and 4 GB module capacities, and in triple-channel and dual-channel kits. These kits are the top of the line that TEAM has, to offer.

Moving on, there's a second line of memory kits for the performance segment, also LV (low-voltage, 1.35V), called TEAM Xtreem Dark series, which offer speeds of DDR3-1600 MHz, and use slightly smaller heatsinks. These modules come in 2, 4 GB capacities, and in dual and triple channel kits. Next up is the TEAM Green series, that are bare modules without heatsinks, that do JEDEC standard DDR3-1333 MHz and DDR3-1600 MHz at 1.35V, with loose timings. Lastly, there's a performance line of SODIMM modules for Apple Macs, the TEAM Mac SODIMM, which runs at DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1066 MHz speeds, offering 2 GB and 4 GB module capacities.

After Aexea, it's time to move onto another boutique memory module vendor, WinChip. This Taiwan-based PC memory vendor seems to focus on the form and design of the memory module (particularly the heatspreaders or heatsinks), so much so, that some of its modules even bear artistic true-color paintings. The first set of modules we came across used a unique kind of heatsinks. Among these, the first one reminded us of some of Mushkin's early heatspreader designs. The second one looks more unique, with a central portion of the heatsink protruding out. A heat pipe is running along the length of the module, evenly distributing heat. In another part of the exhibit, there's a module with a strange heatspreader design. The heatspreader increases module height by almost double, and has a few horizontal grooves to dissipate heat.

Moving on, there are a couple of normally-sized DDR2-800 and DDR3-1333 modules that bears branding of Avatar: The Game. Next up, are the modules attracting a lot of attention. These ones have heatspreaders with fancy true-color graphics, some are photographs, while the others are 3D art, mostly wild-animal themed, including the African Savannah, a gliding eagle, dolphins, toco toucans in a tropical jungle with banana trees, etc.,etc. The last set has heatspreaders with abstract writings in Asian scripts. Like Aexea, WinChip's modules are sold more on their product design. The modules themselves are mostly JEDEC-specced, with the exception of some heavier ones that run at PC3-12800 speeds.

Lesser-known PC memory, flash memory, and phone accessories manufacturer Aexea showed off its goods for the season, including some never before seen memory module heatsink designs. Aexea comes across as a boutique memory module designer, since it displayed many identically/similarly-specced 4 GB and 2 GB DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1600 memory modules with a variety of heatspreader and heatsink designs, in a number of colors, as well. Most of these are sold in single-piece packages, and not so much dual/triple-channel kits. Among these, a certain module called "Vampire" caught our eye, which uses a blood-red colored heatsink, a bat-shadow graphic, and jagged protrusions that put it into the category of semi-heatsink modules, of which G.Skill RipJaws and Corsair Vengeance are popular examples. And oh, they do seem to speak of US market presence.

The RamSan-70 "Gorilla" is a high-performance, half-length PCIe card with 900 GB of usable SLC Flash capacity. Delivering 330K IOPS and 2 GB/s of bandwidth, it offers higher performance and greater capacity than any other half-length SLC Flash PCIe card.

Texas Memory Systems, Inc. (TMS), maker of The World's Fastest Storage, introduces the new high-performance RamSan-70, a 900-GB half-length PCIe card featuring Toshiba's newest 32nm SLC Flash. The RamSan-70 carries on Texas Memory Systems' tradition of delivering a complete integrated RamSan storage solution on a single board.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced the shipment of the Flash Voyager USB 3.0 family of USB flash drives.

The new Flash Voyager USB 3.0 models deliver SuperSpeed USB 3.0 performance, with read speeds up to four times faster than typical USB 2.0 drives. The Flash Voyager USB 3.0 product family shares the same rugged rubber housing and finger-friendly ergonomics that have made the Flash Voyager family a favorite of consumers looking for durable portable data storage. All Flash Voyager USB 3.0 models are shockproof, water-resistant, backward compatible with USB 2.0/USB 1.1 standards, and provide easy plug-and-play compatibility with most operating systems.

Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced it had developed a 2-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM using an industry-leading 25nm process for memory manufacturing. Using the most advanced process technology available Elpida has achieved the industry's smallest chip size for a 2-gigabit SDRAM.

The newly developed 25nm DRAM process technology requires 30% less cell area per bit compared with Elpida's 30nm process. The chip output for a 2-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM wafer using the new process is about 30% higher versus 30nm.