Silicon Power (SP), a leader in performance memory solutions, today released the P32A80 and P32A85 PCIe Solid State Drives, a pair of leading high-performance and long-lasting devices in an already robust pool of SSDs.

For the New Creators Starting Out
The highly functional P32A80 and P32A85 are the ideal SSD solutions for high-end systems that are ready for a new level of performance and responsiveness. SP launches its first ever PCIe SSD, with designers in mind looking for large image rendering and intensive graphic editing capabilities, enterprises demanding high speed file transfer, fast boot-ups, and launches, and also musicians needing high volume recording and music library loading performance.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass production of a 256-gigabyte (GB) embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) solution with advanced features based on automotive specifications from the JEDEC UFS 3.0 standard, for the first time in the industry. Following the memory breakthrough of the automotive industry's first 128GB eUFS in September, 2017, Samsung's 256GB eUFS is now being shipped to automotive manufacturers preparing the market for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), next-generation infotainment systems and new-age dashboards in luxury vehicles.

As thermal management is crucial for automotive memory applications, Samsung's 256GB eUFS extends the temperature range to between -40°C and 105°C for both operational and power-saving modes. Warranties for conventional embedded multimedia card (eMMC) 5.1 solutions generally cover -25°C to 85°C for vehicles in operation and -40°C to 85°C when in idle or power-saving mode.

SK Hynix Inc. today announced that the Company recently completed developing an enterprise SATA Solid State Drive (or 'eSSD'). With its 72-Layer 512Gb (Gigabits) 3D NAND Flash chips, the Company is paving the way for its full-fledged entrance to the high value-added eSSD market. SK Hynix combined the 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND Flash with its in-house firmware and controller to provide the maximum density of 4TB (Terabytes). SK Hynix makes the most of its 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND chips to double the biggest density of the SSD of the same size with 256Gb NAND chips.

A single 4TB SSD could contain 200 UHD (Ultra-HD) movies, each of which is generally as large as approximately 20GB (Gigabytes). The new eSSD supports sequential read and write speed of up to 560MB/s (Megabytes per second) and 515MB/s, respectively, and it can perform 98,000 random read IOPS (Input/Output operations per second) and 32,000 random write IOPS. SK Hynix also improved the read latency, which is of the utmost importance in eSSD performance. The Company is sampling the product to server and data center clients in the United States.

PC hardware enthusiasts all over (but particularly in our own forums) have been adamant in how this is one of the worst times to be building a new system. And it's true; the DIY market is a mess right now, as our own btarunr mentioned in his latest editorial; so much so, that in a full reversal of years and years of experience, users might now actually be better served in the $/performance department by buying their systems from boutique retailers, than by acquiring all of the parts separately. It's a mad, mad world out there, for a multitude of reasons; but one such reason is DRAM pricing. And fortunately, it seems that China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is on the verge of signing a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with Samsung that might help the DRAM market as a whole.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of Universal Flash Storage (UFS) version 3.0, JESD220D. In addition, new updates to related standards, JESD223D UFSHCI and JESD220-2A UFS Card Extension, have also been published. Developed for mobile applications and computing systems requiring high performance with low power consumption, UFS 3.0 is the first standard to introduce MIPI M-PHY HS-Gear4, with a data rate of up to 11.6 Gbps per lane, a 2x performance increase over prior versions of the specification. UFS 3.0 includes two features introduced specifically for the automotive market: the ability to function at an extended temperature range and refresh operation. JESD220D, JESD223D and JESD220-2A are available for download from the JEDEC website.

UFS is a high-performance interface designed for use in applications where power consumption needs to be minimized, including mobile systems such as smart phones and tablets as well as automotive applications. Its high-speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant improvements in throughput and system performance.

To achieve the highest performance and most power efficient data transport, JEDEC UFS leverages industry leading specifications from the MIPI Alliance to form its Interconnect Layer. This collaboration continues with UFS version 3.0, which references the MIPI M-PHY v4.1 physical layer specification and the recently released MIPI UniProSM v1.8 transport layer specification.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has launched an 800-gigabyte (GB) solid state storage drive-the SZ985 Z-SSD, for the most advanced enterprise applications including supercomputing for AI analysis. Developed in 2017, the new 800 GB Z-SSD provides the most efficient storage solution for high-speed cache data and log data processing, as well as other enterprise storage applications that are being designed to meet rapidly growing demand within the AI, big data and IoT markets.

"With our leading-edge 800 GB Z-SSD, we expect to contribute significantly to market introductions of next-generation supercomputing systems in the near future, enabling improved IT investment efficiency and exceptional performance," said Jinman Han, senior vice president, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering at Samsung Electronics. "We will continue to develop next-generation Z-SSDs with higher density and greater product competitiveness, in order to lead the industry in accelerating growth of the premium SSD market."

Intel today released their mainstream answer to users' fast, NVMe-based storage needs, the SSD 760p. We've already covered this new consumer, mainstream SSD series in our news pieces; however, information and press decks have now come directly from Intel, allowing us a clearer picture of how Intel sees its products to fit into the consumer market - and hopefully, in consumer's choices.

Transcend Information, Inc., a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, is proud to announce the release of 2.5-inch and M.2 form factor industrial solid-state drives featuring 3D TLC NAND flash memory. 3D TLC NAND flash memory has performance that can rival Planar (2D) MLC NAND flash, but at a very competitive price point. The new line of industrial SSDs also boast SLC caching, a RAID engine, low-density parity check (LDPC), and other features that make for a stable, long-lasting product ready for write-intensive industrial and embedded applications.

Built with high-quality 3D TLC NAND flash memory
This all-new series of SSDs uses high-quality 3D TLC NAND flash memory. 3D NAND flash breaks through physical limitations on Planar NAND by stacking layers of memory cells to allow for greater capacities and performance. Compared to Planar NAND, 3D NAND is faster, more reliable, and delivers greater performance. Devices manufactured with 3D NAND are price competitive, making them an excellent choice for embedded systems.

Micron Technology, Inc. today launched the Micron 5200 series of SATA solid state drives (SSDs), maintaining industry-leading performance, consistency, capacity, reliability, and overall infrastructure value. Built on Micron's new industry-leading 64-layer 3D NAND technology, the Micron 5200 series of SSDs offers a cost-optimized SATA platform for business-critical virtualized workloads that cripple on a hard drive, such as OLTP, BI/DSS, VDI, block/object and media streaming.

Leveraging the proven architecture, performance and capacity of the well-regarded 5100 SATA SSDs, the Micron 5200 series is engineered to deliver a fast, easy and cost-effective enterprise storage solution to replace existing hard drives and legacy SSDs. Micron 5200 SSDs immediately deliver better total cost of ownership and improve data center efficiency through server and storage platform consolidation, reducing IT costs and simplifying infrastructure and maintenance. Now it is easier than ever before for enterprises to add more flash into the data center and get more out of server deployments.

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today introduced the 860 PRO and 860 EVO solid state drives (SSDs), the most up-to-date additions to the company's SATA interface lineup. The products are aimed at consumers who require fast, reliable performance across various applications, from everyday computing to heavy workloads and graphic-intensive operations. Building on the successful launch of the 850 PRO and 850 EVO - the industry's first consumer SSDs with V-NAND technology - the 860 PRO and 860 EVO achieve industry-leading performance for SATA SSDs, offering enhancements in speed, reliability, compatibility and capacity.

"The new 860 PRO and 860 EVO SSDs combine the latest 512Gb and 256Gb 64-layer V-NAND, up to 4GB LPDDR4 mobile DRAM and a new MJX controller to elevate the user experience for both consumers and businesses," said Un-Soo Kim, senior vice president of Brand Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. "Samsung will continue to fuel meaningful innovations in the consumer SSD space and drive growth of the overall memory industry for years to come."

Hot on the heels of Samsung updating its website with its next performance-segment SSD 860 Pro series, with its range-topping 4 TB variant, a similar pre-launch website update revealed the company's next mainstream SATA SSD, the 860 EVO. The drive will be available in three form-factors, 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch, M.2-2280, and mSATA; all with SATA 6 Gbps interface. The 2.5-inch version comes in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB variants; while the M.2-2280 version comes in just 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB variants; and the mSATA version in 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB variants. The drives combine Samsung's latest generation 3D VNAND flash memory built in the 10 nm-class sliicon fabrication process, with an updated controller and refined firmware.

The 860 EVO offers sequential transfer rates of up to 550 MB/s, with up to 520 MB/s sequential writes, up to 97,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 88,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The new-generation flash is rated for "8 times higher" endurance than the 850 EVO series; with up to 2,400 TBW. Samsung is reinforcing its faith in the drive by backing it with 5-year warranties. The company is introducing the new TurboWrite feature, which is a user-configurable SLC cache. You can set anywhere between 12 GB to 72 GB of the NAND flash to function as SLC, so the controller can juggle hot data in and out of it, for improved performance, using the Samsung Magician software.

QLC is the next big step in flash memory, with another bump in density increases and, crucially for consumers, revised, lower pricing for flash-based products that employ the new technology. We've already had a sneak peek at what QLC-based products can deliver - Intel's leaked SSD 660P employs QLC memory and is expected to deliver 1,800 MB/s in sequential read and up to 1,200 MB/s in sequential write speeds with 150,000 IOPS. Expect base drive capacities to increase - QLC being higher density would mean fewer NAND chips, but manufacturers want to keep the added performance of chip parallelism.

However, flash needs controllers to deliver its true potential, and Marvell has one up its sleeve. The new controller will eventually replace the NVMe 1.1 Eldora (88SS1093) used in some popular SSDs that are already shipping, such as Plextor's M9Pe, and the folks at Tom's hardware took a peek at it - running the current TLC memory, that is. The controller delivered over 670,000 IOPS and 3,500 MB/s in the demo, though there's no information on the density of the drive. But for those performance levels, it must've had a good amount of silicon. While not representative of final QLC memory performance of the controller, it's good to know that at least this part of the ecosystem is good to go. Now if only QLC was quick and hot off the presses, we could see a $100 512 GB SSD.

Autobuy, a popular online shopping site in Taiwan, recently listed Intel's upcoming 760p and 660p M.2 NVMe SSDs on their store. The SSD 760p will be manufactured under Intel's 64-layer 3D NAND technology and feature TLC (triple-level-cell) NAND. It's obviously the faster of the two with a sequential read speed up to 3,200 MB/s and a write speed up to 1,600 MB/s. The drive offers random access reads up to 350,000 IOPS and writes up to 280,000 IOPS. Intel will offer this model in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. TigerDirect listed the pricing for them at $96, $120, $240, $448, and $893, respectively.

The SSD 660p is Intel's budget-friendly this time around. Therefore, it will use QLC (quad-level-cell) NAND despite being manufactured with the same technology as its older brother. This SSD can reach up to 1,800 MB/s in sequential read and up to 1,200 MB/s in sequential write speeds with random access read and write performance in the range of 150,000 IOPS. Surprisingly, Intel won't be offering this model in the 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. Instead, the lowest capacity model will start from 512 GB and make its way up to 2 TB. Unfortunately, pricing wasn't available at the time of this article.

Reuters reports that a sudden (if ridiculous) 5% drop in memory chip prices in Q4 2017 has brought revenue expectations and investors' profit measurements to a teetering halt. 5% may not look like much - it certainly isn't much when we look at the historic price increases that almost doubled the cost of DDR4 memory kits, as you can see in the PC Part Picker chart below. This memory module price chart doesn't include the 5% drop yet, probably because it takes time for memory chip pricing to materialize in end-user module pricing. But for investors, it's like a spark in a paper archive - it could signal an impending price decrease that would push all profit estimates out the window.

This 5% drop in pricing has prompted industry analysts to review their profit estimates for 2018, and expect that the memory industry's growth rate will fall by more than half this year to 30 percent. You read that right - investors are scared because growth rates will be 30 percent instead of 60 percent. Oh the joys of inflated pricing, and slower-than-usual ramp-up to keep demand higher than supply. The joys of economic capitalism, where prices for consumers go up, and an industries' value skyrockets by more than 70$ in a single year (2017).

EDGE Memory, a leading U.S.-based supplier of memory and storage upgrades, is announcing their CLX600 line of SSDs with M.2 2280, MO-300/mSATA, and 1.8" SATA 6Gb/s models.

Featuring a combination of performance, reliability, and low power consumption, CLX600 SSDs are the ideal choice for system integrators. The M.2 and mSATA models provide impressive throughput, with up to 500MB/s transfer rate and transactional performance that reaches up to 59,000 IOPS. The CLX600 1.8" SSD can achieve transfer speeds of up to 560MB/s and up to 76,000 IOPS. CLX600 SSDs provide ultra-efficient block management to protect data and enhance endurance. These drives deliver leading edge performance and reliability for the most demanding power users, while low power modes extend battery life for road warriors.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the availability of the Crucial MX500 SSD. The new drive features second generation Micron 3D NAND technology and is 45 times more energy efficient than a typical hard drive. Available in capacities up to 2TB in the 2.5-inch form factor and up to 1TB in the M.2 form factor, the MX500 has sequential reads/writes up to 560/510 MB/s and random reads/writes up to 95K/90K IOPS.

"This next generation MX500 SSD features a stackable 64-layer, 256-gigabit component. Micron's floating gate NAND is designed with CMOS Under the Array (CUA), which allows us to minimize the footprint of the die. At 59 square millimeters, it's among the world's smallest 256-gigabit die," said Jon Tanguy, Crucial Senior SSD Product Engineer. "Our engineering team has incorporated this leading-edge NAND technology in an SSD that includes all the advanced features Crucial customers have come to expect to keep their data safe."

Micron and Intel today announced an update to their successful NAND memory joint development partnership that has helped the companies develop and deliver industry-leading NAND technologies to market. The announcement involves the companies' mutual agreement to work independently on future generations of 3D NAND. The companies have agreed to complete development of their third-generation of 3D NAND technology, which will be delivered toward the end of this year and extending into early 2019. Beyond that technology node, both companies will develop 3D NAND independently in order to better optimize the technology and products for their individual business needs.

Micron and Intel expect no change in the cadence of their respective 3D NAND technology development of future nodes. The two companies are currently ramping products based on their second-generation of 3D NAND (64 layer) technology. Both companies will also continue to jointly develop and manufacture 3D XPoint at the Intel-Micron Flash Technologies (IMFT) joint venture fab in Lehi, Utah, which is now entirely focused on 3D XPoint memory production.

PLEXTOR, a leading manufacturer of award-winning solid-state drives (SSDs) and other high-performance digital storage devices for consumers, today announced the launch of its newest NVMe PCIe SSD the M9Pe Series. The new M9Pe SSD Series has adopted advanced 64-layer 3D NAND and flagship controller along with exclusive PlexNitro, smart cache technology, delivering unprecedented sequential read/write up to 3,200/2,100 MB/s and random read/write up to 400,000/300,000 IOPS. The M9Pe puts improved performance and durability in its crosshairs.

Aimed at high-level PC gaming such as eSports, the M9Pe boasts of its superior components to deliver less lags and 20% faster boot up times compared to a typical SATA drive. The new M9Pe (HHHL/AIC version only) also sports a new eye-catching design with its programmable 3-mode RGB LED lights for the perfect visual appeal on any desktop gaming setup. Similar to its predecessors, the new M9Pe features a high-performing thermal heatsink (M9PeY and M9PeG only) to help regulate SSD temperatures during prolonged gaming sessions resulting to stabilized performance.

It's been a couple years now that we've seen continuously increasing pricing of DRAM and NAND semiconductors. The price increase, which has been hailed and documented over, over, andover again (and there are way more articles on this subject here on TPU), follows reported increased demand which has failed to be accompanied by its respective manufacturing and supply ability.

However, reports that companies were planning on increasing production of DRAM and NAND below the expected increases in supply demand may have turned at least some regulatory eyes towards the issue. China's National Development and Reform Commission's Pricing Supervision Department (NDRC) said they are aware of the situation, how it could point towards price-fixing from the four major NAND production players (Samsung, Hynix, Micron and Toshiba), and are looking into the matter. "We have noticed the price surge and will pay more attention to future problems that may be caused by 'price fixing' in the sector," the official Xu Xinyu was quoted as saying in an interview to Chinese newspaper Daily China.

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.

DigiTimes, quoting industry sources, reports that NAND flash supply should see improvements from its 4Q17 state in 2018. This likely doesn't come as much of a surprise - 2017 has been a sort of "squeeze" year for NAND and DDR memory manufacturing, with companies increasing production without committing to fully satisfy demand, which in turn translates to longer term higher pricing of memory. Still, those tentative increases to production capabilities should begin to release the memory pricing squeeze during 1Q18, with ASP (average selling price) coming down.

The increase in production and supply doesn't come solely from factory floor expansions, however; there's also been reports of increased yields of 3D NAND fabrication technologies, which should also increase availability in the best way possible for manufacturers.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass production of the industry's first 512-gigabyte (GB) embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) solution for use in next-generation mobile devices. Utilizing Samsung's latest 64-layer 512-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND chips, the new 512GB eUFS package provides unparalleled storage capacity and outstanding performance for upcoming flagship smartphones and tablets.

"The new Samsung 512GB eUFS provides the best embedded storage solution for next-generation premium smartphones by overcoming potential limitations in system performance that can occur with the use of micro SD cards," said Jaesoo Han, executive vice president of Memory Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "By assuring an early, stable supply of this advanced embedded storage, Samsung is taking a big step forward in contributing to timely launches of next-generation mobile devices by mobile manufacturers around the world."

Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and high-performance storage solutions, is thrilled to announce the release of a new series of SSD from COLORFUL: the new PLUS Series SSD. Available in capacities up to 640GB, the COLORFUL PLUS Series SSD offers the latest in 3D TLC NAND Flash technology along with a new SMI SM2258XT controller offering a new NAND Flash configuration while still offering competitive endurance, capacity and price.

The COLORFUL Plus Series SSD are expected to ship to distributor by November and will be available in three capacities: 160GB(SL300 Plus 160G), 320GB (SL500 Plus 320G) and 640GB (SL500 Plus 640G).

As big data usage is becoming ubiquitous, and workload data-sets increase in both size and complexity, new ways of connecting processing resources to storage are being developed. Intel and Micron's partnership in developing 3D XPoint memory came as a way for computer systems to reduce their bottlenecks in storing data for processing, with a particular emphasis on reducing latency. Samsung, however, has enough resources to try and provide alternatives for the emergent market needs, and being one of the most important players in the NAND industry, it seems the company is betting on the Z-NAND wagon.

For now, Z-NAND as it is being developed by Samsung, is expected to be a new rendition of SLC (Single-Level Cell) NAND, with increased controller tweaks and improvements to achieve greater IOPS in both random and sequential workloads. SLC has already been widely used in the SSD market, though in recent years it has been giving way to density-oriented technologies, such as MLC and, more recently, TLC NAND, in an effort to lower the $/GB equation. Z-NAND is a return to the SLC roots, with some very relevant tricks up its sleeve - while 3D XPoint's call to fame was sometimes up to 10x lower latency (in the order of 10/10μs), Z-NAND is also bringing latency to levels hitherto unknown to NAND memory - specifically, to the 12-20/16μs realms.

Today TDK Corporation (President: Shigenao Ishiguro) announced the gradual launch of SD Memory cards (MMRD4 series) and microSD Memory cards (MURD4 series) from January 2018. Both series support UHS-I for industrial application. The rapid progression of IoT has increased demand for smaller SD/microSD Memory cards with low power consumption for the storage of sensor information. However, as SD/microSD Memory cards for general use adopt TLC and MLC type flash memory to reduce costs, they are largely unsuitable for industrial application in terms of durability and reliability.

The MMRD4 and MURD4 series consist of highly reliable SD/microSD Memory cards equipped with very durable SLC/pSLC flash memory as well as the newly developed SD controller, TDK GBDriverRD4. In addition to data retention capacity and durability, the cards feature robust data security in the event of power interruption, ensuring safe usage in IoT devices that are often turned off to conserve power.