Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, has begun volume production of its industrial temperature SATA and PATA interface NANDrive embedded solid state drives (SSDs) using 2-bits-per-cell (MLC) NAND flash memory. Overcoming the temperature sensitivity risk of MLC NAND, industrial temperature (I-temp) SATA and PATA NANDrive operate between -40 and +85 degrees Celsius.

Compared to significantly more expensive 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND-based SSDs, I-temp MLC NANDrive offers cost-effective, ball grid array (BGA) products that meet quality and reliability requirements-such as avoiding uncorrectable errors and data retention issues-when the MLC NAND is operating at extremely low and high temperatures. NANDrive combines Greenliant's internally developed NAND controller with NAND flash die for a fully integrated SSD in a multi-chip package.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its USB 3.0 Express RC4 has been certified for usage with Windows To Go, a new feature of Microsoft's Windows 8 Enterprise edition. The RC4 is SuperTalent's second drive to be certified to date. Windows To Go enables enterprises to provision a full corporate image on an external USB drive which users can boot and operate from almost any PC. SuperTalent plans to continue to work with firms to unveil its "hardware secure" version in the near future.

Certified through the Windows 8 Hardware certification kit, Super Talent's RC4 is one of the world's top USB 3.0 drives with SSD technology; it provides high random read/write speed capabilities and reports itself as fixed media. Super Talent's RC4 meets and surpasses many of the performance requirements of Windows To Go certified drives.

Toshiba Corporation and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed leader that collaborates with technology companies to create breakthrough designs, today announced that it began shipping samples of its 64-gigabyte (GB) embedded NAND flash memory module equipped with a Universal Flash Storage (UFS) interface. The first in the industry, the new module is fully compliant with the JEDEC UFS Ver.1.1 standard, and is designed for a wide range of digital consumer products - including smartphones and tablet PCs.

With improved data processing speeds in host chipsets and wider bandwidths for wireless connectivity, demand continues to grow for large density, high-performance memory that supports high resolution video. A proven innovator in this key area, Toshiba is reinforcing its leadership role by being the first in the industry to ship samples with a 64GB UFS module.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed NANO FLASH-100 much faster access for embedded microcontrollers, based on Toshiba's original NANO FLASH. The rich functionality and high speed capabilities of embedded microcontrollers require much flash memory with much faster access rates. Toshiba has recognized and responded to this by developing NANO FLASH which merges two features: high speed programming, based on NAND flash memory cell device technology; and NOR flash memory circuit technology.

Toshiba has subsequently brought this high level performance to its original microcontrollers and to ARM core-based microcontrollers. Now, as more users use ARM core-based microcontrollers, there is an emerging need for greater speed and large memory capacities. NANO FLASH-100 is highly suited to this market.

Intel made an addition to its SSD 335 line of performance-segment consumer SSDs, which is currently available in just one capacity, 240 GB. The new 180 GB variant (SKU: SSDSC2CT180A4K5) retains the feature-set and rated speeds of its older sibling, boasting of up to 500 MB/s reads, up to 450 MB/s writes, and up to 52,000 IOPS 4K random write throughput. Based on the LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor, the drive features 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips by IMFlash Technologies (Intel, Micron JV).

In addition, Intel updated the drive body design, which will also apply to newer batches of the 240 GB variant. The new design consists of a brace running the perimeter of the drive (without affecting its 2.5-inch 9 mm-thick size compliance), and a "circuit board" print art. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the Intel SSD 335 180 GB is priced at US $179.99.

Singapore based Strontium Technology launched premium solid metal USB drives called Ammo. The new Ammo USB Flash Drive with a shiny metallic lustre is available in gold and silver colour finish. The gold finish drive is actually plated with real 24 carat gold giving it a rich appearance.

Ammo Flash drive comes in a sturdy brushed metal casing with a sleek look keeping in mind the demands and requirements of discerning users who want a high quality and high class product. The sleek and robust design works not only with Windows platform desktop PC, notebook PCs and Apple iMac and MacBook as well. The highest quality NAND flash memory component used in the Ammo USB drives offer maximum reliability and sustained fast data transfer rates.

Intel Corporation announced today the Intel Solid-State Drive 525 Series (Intel SSD 525 Series) in a small mSATA form factor with 6-gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) performance. The Intel SSD 525 Series gives OEM customers, channel and tech enthusiasts an ultra-portable, low-power storage solution in one-eighth the space of a traditional 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) to drive innovative Ultrabook, tablet and embedded applications.

The Intel SSD 525 is the latest entry to the Intel 500 Series SSD Family aimed at higher-performance, enthusiast solutions. Measuring 3.7 mm x 50.8 mm x 29.85 mm and weighing 10 grams, the mSATA with PCI Express (PCIe) mini-connector delivers the performance of the company's Intel SSD 520 Series client drive. This makes the Intel SSD 525 suitable for All-in-One desktops, notebooks, Ultrabooks and workstation upgrades, as well as automotive, digital signage, embedded video and retail solutions.

Plextor implemented a design change in the NAND flash memory of its M5S and M5 Pro series consumer SSDs. The two see a transit from 20 nm-class NAND flash chips in the BGA package, to 19 nm chips in the TSOP (pins along the shorter edges) package. Both chips are Toshiba-made. The controller and latest firmware (FW 1.02) remain unchanged. The move to chips in the TSOP package doesn't impact on the specifications or price of the products, but gives the controller the ability to handle greater page-size on the chips.

The TSOP chips feature maximum page-size of 16 KB/page, while the BGA chips feature 8 KB/page. In theory, this should improve "buffer management," when the controller decides to use NAND flash as scratchpads, in spite of having a gigabyte of DRAM cache at its disposal. Further, the new TSOP package NAND flash chips have lighter thermal requirements, letting Plextor get rid of the conductive thermal pads over the chips, saving a Dollar or two. The company did not release any markers on how to identify the two variants of drives by looking at serial numbers.

Japanese company Green House announced the GH-SSD22A line of consumer SSDs in the 2.5-inch (9.5 mm-thick) SATA form-factor. Available in 32 GB (GH-SSD22A32), 64 GB (GH-SSD22A64), 128 GB (GH-SSD22A128), and 256 GB (GH-SSD22A256) capacities, the drives are based on Phison PS3107-S7 controller platform, with MLC NAND flash memory. The SATA 3 Gb/s capable drives feature 200 MB/s sequential read speeds, with up to 140 MB/s writes. Most common consumer SSD features, including TRIM, NCQ, 48-bit/1KB ECC, and SMART are available. The GH-SSD22A drives are expected to occupy entry-level price points with about $0.75/GB.

A PCI-Express variant of OCZ's Vector SSD is exhibited at CES. Pictures reveal it to be a compound SSD, that uses two subunits of the Vector 256 GB, striped into RAID 0, and connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller that talks to the rest of the system over PCI-Express 2.0 x4. Each of the two Vector SSD subunits on Vector PCIe features an OCZ-Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, sixteen 25 nm Intel-made MLC NAND flash chips, and 512 MB of DDR3 DRAM cache.

OCZ ran benchmarks of the drive, which reveal performance upscaling over the 2.5-inch SATA Vector SSD that's expected of a RAID 0 setup. Sequential speeds were as high as 926.2 MB/s reads, with 881 MB/s writes, a respectable 563 MB/s 4K-QD64 reads, with 501 MB/s 4K-QD64 writes. Overall, the Vector PCIe is a suitable successor to the company's 2-subunit RevoDrive, and is aimed more at consumers, but could help businesses just as well, thanks to the good multi-threaded performance of the Barefoot 3 platform.

Etron Technology, Inc. (Taiwan GTSM: 5351) introduces a new flash drive controller, EV2669, of Etron's USB3.0 Flash Drive Accelerator (FDA) series, in addition to its EV1669 product recently announced at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). EV2669 enables Etron's USB3.0 flash drive customers to deliver unprecedented read and write speeds of 260 and 235 megabytes per second with MLC (Multiple Level Cell) flash memories without additional host drivers or software required. Moreover, EV2669 meets customer demands for large data storage by supporting flash memory capacities up to 128GB.

EV2669 utilizes Etron's proprietary Flash Driver Accelerator technology to improve the overall performance of NAND flash memory access by leveraging advanced firmware algorithms and high-performance flash interface engines. It has been adopted in the products of top-tier USB3.0 flash drive makers, many of which are exhibited at the 2013 CES.

Etron Technology, Inc. (Taiwan GTSM: 5351) announces a new USB3.0 single-channel Flash disk Accelerator (FDA) IC, EV1669, as the first product of the FDA family. EV1669 is capable of achieving read and write speeds of 100 and 80 megabytes per second, respectively, with a TLC (Triple-Level-Cell) flash memory with no additional host driver or software required.

Etron's USB3.0 FDA series, including EV1669, utilizes proprietary flash disk accelerating technology. This breakthrough technology increases the overall performance of accessing any NAND flash memory by using a new architecture that includes advanced firmware algorithms and high-speed flash interface engines and also significantly enhances the reliability and stability of various NAND flash memories.

Toshiba Corporation will showcase a reference display of an SDHC memory card with TransferJet close proximity wireless transfer technology at the 2013 International CES, to be held from January 8 to 11, 2013, in Las Vegas, U.S.A.

The SDHC memory card on reference display will be a product under development, integrating a TransferJet transceiver IC, a coupler, an RF filter, peripheral passive parts, an SD bridge connection circuit, and Toshiba's NAND flash memory.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash storage and enthusiast computer products today announces the availability of the new ultraportable Autobahn USB 2.0 drive. Designed for those looking for excellent USB 2.0 performance and high capacity in a micro sized form factor, the Patriot Autobahn is less than 18mm in length and becomes barely noticeable when plugged in.

Car audio enthusiasts can now rock their tunes with ease. The Autobahn is plug-and-play compatible with stereos that support USB connections for hours of music playback, without the hassle of plugging in an external player. The Patriot Autobahn is available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities to take all your data with you in and ever increasing mobile world.

Kingfast rolled out the K25 Ultra cache-SSD. Featuring 32 GB of MLC NAND flash, the drive comes bundled with a license to use NVELO DataPlex SSD caching software, with which you can accelerate your existing HDD-based machine, without re-installing anything. The K25 Ultra is built into the 2.5-inch 7 mm-thick SATA 3 Gb/s form-factor, which makes it ultra-thin friendly. While an accelerated HDD's performance will depend on various other factors, the drive itself can dole out 270 MB/s sequential reads, and 190 MB/s sequential writes. It is priced at $58.

VIA Labs, Inc., a leading supplier of USB 3.0 integrated chip controllers, today announced its two latest USB 3.0 device controllers, the VIA VL752 and VIA VL753 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to NAND flash controllers. The VIA VL752 and VIA VL753 deliver enhanced performance using the latest NAND flash technologies including 19nm, 20nm and 21nm geometries and have been certified by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) for SuperSpeed operation, ensuring high quality, seamless interoperability, and effortless backwards compatibility.

The two-channel the VIA VL752 and single-channel VIA VL753 offer data transfer speeds up to 280MB/s, flexible bad block management, support for the latest 200MHz DDR NAND Flash, and a robust ECC engine for greater data integrity. The package sizes from the previous generation of VIA Superspeed USB to NAND flash controllers have been reduced to a QFN68 8 x 8mm package for the VIA VL752 and a QFN48 6 x 6mm package for the VIA VL753 to enable the smallest form-factor designs.

Intel's SSD 525 line of performance mSATA SSDs may be slated for 2013, but made an early debut with the company's NUC (next unit of computing) desktop. A 180 GB variant of the drive was put to test by VR-Zone, which is driven by LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor, and features three Intel-made 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips (6-channels). The drive cracked Anvil Storage Utilities benchmark with 504 MB/s (compressible) and 463 MB/s (incompressible) sequential read speeds, 468 MB/s (compressible) and 240 MB/s (incompressible) sequential writes, and about 55,841 IOPS 4K random write (QD16) performance. The performance numbers make the drive appear nearly as fast as larger 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, and could be a boon for Ultrabook makers.

Transcend announced a 128 GB variant of its StoreJet Cloud wireless SSD (model: TS128GSJC10K), which the company launched in December 2011, with 32 GB and 64 GB variants. Measuring 99 x 54 x 16.5 mm, and weighing 90 g (roughly the size and weight of an entry-level smartphone), the drive is a self-powered wireless SSD, which uses a Li-polymer battery that can keep the drive connected for up to 6 hours; and 802.11 b/g/n (up to 150 Mbps) WLAN interface, with which the drive can either be part of a wireless network, or serve up to five clients in a small radius.

Since it's technically a NAS, the StoreJet Cloud features support for basic NAS features, and can be controlled using apps for mobile devices via Google Play and Apple App Store. The drive uses USB 2.0/1.1 for charging, and can connect to a host as USB mass-storage device. Thanks to drops in NAND flash prices, the 128 GB variant is priced around US $150. For reference, the 64 GB variant was launched at $300, just last year.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, and the Open NAND Flash Interface Workgroup (ONFI) today announced the publication of JESD230 NAND Flash Interface Interoperability Standard (Package). This jointly developed document defines a standard for NAND flash device interface interoperability. JESD230 is available for free download from both www.jedec.org and onfi.org.

JESD230 addresses signaling descriptions, packages, definitions, abbreviations and conventions, and is backwards compatible with existing technologies to the greatest degree possible. The standard will help enable the design of interoperable systems that can support Asynchronous SDR, Synchronous DDR and Toggle DDR NAND flash devices.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, today announced that it is producing advanced solid state drives (SSDs) that are designed specifically for use in servers and enterprise storage systems. These drives - the SM843 and the SM1625 - will be particularly useful as high-speed storage for a wide range of server and storage applications that depend on extremely fast data writing including social media in the cloud, SQL database logs, media streaming, virtualization, video on demand and online transaction processing (OLTP).

Samsung's new data center and enterprise SSDs deliver extremely high performance with low power consumption in providing the most efficient storage solutions for data center applications," said Myungho Kim, vice president of memory marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung will aggressively produce its new line-up of SSDs beginning this month to accelerate SSDs' move into not only the server but also the storage marketplace, as we continue to affirm our leadership in the SSD market."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will display its enterprise storage solutions at the Gartner Symposium/ITXpo, Booth #1044, Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from October 21st through October 25th. The Gartner Symposium/ITXpo is an annual gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives seeking the latest tools, technologies, and information to improve IT capabilities and data center effectiveness.

For SAN acceleration of I/O intensive workloads, OCZ will present its leading Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs supporting both full-height (FH) and half-height (HH) configurations, enabling the CPU with direct access (zero-latency storage) and instant boot capabilities. The FH (3/4 length) RM88 model enables an industry best 2.8GB/s of sequential throughput, 410K of random IOPS performance, and usable MLC NAND flash capacities from 800GB to 3.2TB. The HH (half-length) RM84 model is also a performance leader enabling 2GB/s of sequential throughput, 250K of random IOPS performance and usable capacities from 300GB to 1.2TB.

ADATA announced a new line of affordable client SSDs, the Premier Pro SP600 series. Built in the 9.5 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, the drives take advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB capacities, the Premier Pro SP600 series is driven by JMicron JMF661 processor, and features 20 nm-class MLC NAND flash memory. The drives offer sequential read speeds of up to 360 MB/s, and up to 130 MB/s writes. Random access performance numbers provided to us include 40,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and 30,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The drives pack most common client SSD features, including TRIM, NCQ, and 40 b/KB ECC. The 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB variants are priced at US $49.99, $69.99, and $99.99, respectively.

Samsung developed a new file-system that's optimized for storage devices with multiple NAND flash memory chips. Called "Flash-Friendly File-System" or F2FS, Samsung's newest creation has been submitted to the group governing the Linux kernel, and an implementation of it on derivatives such as Android is possible in the near future. F2FS is designed to take into account the "internal geometry" of NAND flash storage devices, using a log structure approach that overcomes shortcomings of file-systems designed for older spinning-disc physical media (such as floppy, hard drives, and optical discs). There's also promise for F2FS, particularly in future high-density servers using enterprise SSDs.

Toshiba announced the new MQ01ABD series hybrid hard drives for notebooks. Built in the 2.5-inch 9.5 mm-thick form-factor, the drives embed a dual-platter hard drive with 8 GB of SLC NAND flash memory, and 32 MB cache for the hard drive component. The hard drive component has a maximum spindle speed of 5,400 RPM. Available in 750 GB (MQ01ABD075H) and 1 TB (MQ01ABD100H) variants, the drives support SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and Advanced Format. The company did not reveal pricing, as the two drives are being sampled from today.

MyDigitalSSD has teamed up with SuperSSpeeds to offer the fastest and top performing solid state drives on the market today. Utilizing the SandForce SF-2281 controller and SLC NAND flash, the SuperSSpeed boasts incredible speed for advanced gaming, multitasking, and multimedia computing power. Rated at 550MB/s Read and 520MB/s Write, the SuperSSpeed is proof that in this day and age, you get what you pay for, being arguably 20 times better than its nearest MLC rival at only twice the expense including accessories.

As with all MyDigitalSSD drives, the SuperSSpeed runs cool and quiet with no moving parts to create heat. Coupled with being shockproof, meaning that dropping your SSD or notebook no longer means losing your data, the SuperSSpeed it a far more durable and reliable upgrade to a traditional spinning hard drive (HDD).