SK hynix memory solutions (SKHMS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Khandker Nazrul Quader has joined SKHMS as President and CEO effective June 21, 2013. "It has been nearly one year since SK hynix acquired controller expertise through the acquisition of Link-A-Media Devices, now SK hynix memory solutions (SKHMS)," stated Dr. Park, President and CEO of SK hynix and Chairman of the Board of SKHMS. "The addition of Dr. Quader's leadership with his extensive background in NAND technology and design, Advanced Non-volatile memories and DRAM storage technologies and his extensive experience and expertise in Multi-level Flash memory management systems will further leverage the value of the SKHMS team, especially at this time of significant market growth in the areas of Flash memory based storage solutions. It is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Quader as part of SK family."

"I'm very excited to join and lead the SKHMS (formerly Link-A-Media) team at a time when the flash memory industry is poised for phenomenal growth in SSD and mobile markets," said Dr. Quader. "The integration of the controller solution know-how of SKHMS combined with the Advanced Non-volatile memories and DRAM technologies and the manufacturing capabilities of SK hynix is producing leading-edge products across multiple market segments. Full vertical integration of controller hardware, advanced flash memory systems architecture, firmware, NAND, other forms of non-volatile memory, and DRAM coupled with high volume memory manufacturing capability is quite rare in the industry and allows our customers to have a one-stop storage solution provider with the capacity, support and expertise the industry demands. The combined focus of SK hynix and SKHMS provides excellent opportunity to become a market leader in Enterprise, Client and Mobile storage."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today held the 2013 Samsung SSD Global Summit at the Westin Chosun Seoul in celebration of the launch of its new solid state drive (SSD), the Samsung SSD 840 EVO. Along with the announcement of its latest SSD under the theme of "SSDs for everyone", the Samsung SSD Global Summit also explored the future of the global SSD market, which is quickly replacing the HDD market.

"After accelerating the growth of the SSD market by last year's launch of entry-level, high-performance SSDs we are introducing a much faster SSDs with up to 1 TB capacities offering consumers a wider range of choices," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung continues to enhance its SSD brand image by delivering the industry's highest quality solutions and continuously increasing its SSD market share by expanding the adoption of higher density SSDs especially in client PC segments"

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced that it is sampling next-generation, 16-nanometer (nm) process technology, enabling the industry's smallest 128-gigabit (Gb) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash memory devices. The 16 nm node is not only the leading Flash process, but it is also the most advanced processing node for any sampling semiconductor device. It solidifies Micron's leadership position in storage technology development and delivers on the company's vision to provide the most advanced semiconductor solutions.

Micron's 128 Gb MLC NAND Flash memory devices are targeted at applications like consumer SSDs, removable storage (USB drives and Flash cards), tablets, ultrathin devices, mobile handsets and data center cloud storage. The new 128 Gb NAND Flash memory provides the greatest number of bits per square millimeter and lowest cost of any MLC device in existence. In fact, the new technology could create nearly 6 TB of storage on a single wafer.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems today announces selected preliminary financial results for the first quarter ended May 31, 2013, subject to customary closing and audit procedures.
Preliminary revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 is estimated to be between $50 and $55 million. The sequential decrease in revenue was primarily due to the continued tight supply of NAND flash. The Company's revenue mix continued to shift towards the mainstream and higher-end client markets, as well as enterprise and OEM solutions as the Company continued to focus on these end markets. At the end of the quarter there was an additional $23 million of shippable backlog that was unrealized in the quarter due to supply constraints.

Gross margin continued to improve and is estimated to be between 17% and 20% for the first fiscal quarter as revenue generated from our Enterprise solutions increased sequentially. The Company continued to reduce its operating expenses by further reducing non critical spending. The Company's break-even level continues to improve due to these actions. Operating expenses for the first quarter are estimated to be between $20 and $22 million, which include restatement related expenses of approximately $1.5 million and stock compensation charges of approximately $2 million. Cash flow improved as we reduced our quarterly cash usage to approximately $6 million in the quarter. Cash ended the quarter between $6 and $7 million with total debt outstanding of $10 million. The Company expects that it will require access to additional capital which it is currently in the process of securing.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it will expand its state-of-art No. 5 semiconductor fabrication facility (Fab 5) at Yokkaichi Operations in Mie, Japan, to secure manufacturing space for NAND flash memories fabricated with next generation process technology and for future 3D memories. Fab 5 second phase construction will start at the end of August this year and be completed in summer next year. Decisions on equipment investment and production will reflect market trends.

Yokkaichi Operations currently has three Fabs mass producing NAND flash memory, including Fab 5 phase 1. Fab 5's construction was planned around two phases, the first of which went into operation in July 2011. After giving careful consideration to the balance of product supply and demand, and noting a recovery driven by growing demand for smartphones, tablets, SSD for enterprise servers and other new applications, Toshiba now anticipates further medium- to long-term market expansion and recognizes that the time is right to expand Fab 5.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced that the construction of the phase two shell of the Fab 5 joint venture wafer fabrication facility located in Yokkaichi, Japan, will begin in August 2013 with expected completion in mid-2014.

SanDisk expects to use phase two of Fab 5 primarily for technology transitions of existing Yokkaichi wafer capacity. The new cleanroom will provide the space needed for additional equipment required for transitioning the wafer capacity in Fab 3, Fab 4 and phase one of Fab 5, to next generation 2D NAND technologies and to early generations of 3D NAND technology. The Fab 5 plans are consistent with the company's strategy outlined during SanDisk's Investor Day May 8 and there are no changes to SanDisk's capital expenditure plans.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first PCI-Express (PCIe) solid state drive (SSD) for next-generation ultra-slim notebook PCs.

"With the Samsung XP941, we have become the first to provide the highest performance PCIe SSD to global PC makers so that they can launch leading-edge ultra-slim notebook PCs this year," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue timely delivery of the most advanced PCIe SSD solutions with higher density and performance, and support global IT companies providing an extremely robust computing environment to consumers." Samsung started providing the new SSD to major notebook PC makers earlier this quarter. The XP941 lineup consists of 512, 256 and 128GB SSDs.

BIWIN, a world-leading expert in the development and manufacture of flash and advanced NAND flash memory, has introduced two Industrial Grade Disk-On-Modules (DOMs) with SATA interface, D5211 and D5212. They are well suited for installation needing long endurance parts with high reliability under rugged conditions.

D5211 and D5212, available in capacities of up to 16GB, are SLC NAND based modules with a PE Cycle as high as 100,000 times. The products complies with strict, industrial grade controllers to ensure a stable operating performance under extended temperature ranges between -40°C to 85°C.

Intel Corporation today announced the Intel Solid-State Drive DC S3500 Series, its latest solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers and cloud computing. Designed for read-intensive applications such as Web hosting, cloud computing and data center virtualization, the Intel DC S3500 Series is an ideal replacement for traditional hard disk drives (HDD), allowing data centers to save significant costs by moving toward an all-SSD storage model.

Intel SSDs, including the Intel SSD DC S3500 Series, enable transformational improvements in cloud infrastructure, fostering new and enriching Web experiences. End customers experience quicker Web page loads and improved response times as a result of dramatically improved data access times and reduced latency. IT managers and cloud developers are rewarded with improved total cost of ownership as a result of reduced power consumption, more consistent performance and smaller space requirements. More than half of U.S. businesses now employ cloud computing applications, and IDC predicts that worldwide spending on cloud services will reach $44.2 billion this year. Data centers powering these cloud applications need to quickly, efficiently and reliably scale to handle the tremendous growth of connected users and data traffic.

Team Group showed off its Dark L3 line of mainstream consumer SSDs. Based on the common SandForce SF-2281 platform, and built in the conventional 9.5 mm-thick 2.5 mm form-factor with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, these drives use 19 nm MLC NAND flash, and come in 60 GB, 120 GB, and 240 GB capacities. All three models offer up to 550 Mb/s reads, the 60 GB and 120 GB variants offers up to 450 MB/s writes, while the 240 GB variant offers up to 500 MB/s. All three models offer 35,000 IOPS 4K random reads, the 60 GB variant offers 25,000 IOPS 4K random writes; while the 120 GB and 240 GB variants offer up to 50,000 IOPS. Most common client SSD features such as TRIM, NCQ, and SMART, are standard issue.

ADATA showed off a new high-performance server-grade SSD, the SX2000. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, this drive features a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 interface (a cable runs to a PCIe riser card). It is driven by an LSI-SandForce SF-8639 controller, which is a single-chip solution that connects to the host over PCI-Express, and appears to the operating system as ATA AHCI controller, with one drive connected to it. The chip features nearly more than double the ONFI channels as an SF-2281, which reflects on the drive's advertise performance numbers: up to 1,800 MB/s reads with up to 1,800 MB/s writes; up to 200,000 IOPS 4K random reads. The controller supports all modern enterprise SSD features, including TRIM, DEVSLP support, and SMART. It ships in 100 GB, 200 GB, 400 GB, 800 GB, and 1,600 GB variants. The latter was up on display.

ADATA also showed off its SX1000 enterprise SSD, which features a more modest SATA 6 Gb/s interface, an LSI SandForce SF-2500 or SF-2600 series controller, sequential performance numbers of up to 550 MB/s reads with up to 500 MB/s writes, up to 75,000 IOPS 4K random reads/writes, can work as DAS, and most modern enterprise features. This drive will be available in 100 GB, 200 GB, and 400 GB capacities, the 200 GB variant was on display. It's unclear which kind of NAND flash the two drives use, but we're guessing it's high-endurance MLC NAND. Both offer 5-year warranties.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that the company has developed second generation 19 nanometer process technology that it will apply to mass production of 2-bit-per-cell 64 gigabit NAND memory chips later this month.

Toshiba has used the new generation technology to develop the world's smallest 2-bit per-cell 64 gigabit NAND memory chips, with an area of only 94 square millimeters. Using a unique high speed writing method, the next generation chips can achieve a write speed of up to 25 megabytes a second - the world's fastest class* in 2-bit-per-cell chips.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today announced a small but stylish addition to its DashDrive family of USB Flash drives. The new DashDrive Choice UC510 packs durability and charm into a super small and handy profile.

With this new drive, ADATA has once again made the most of Chip on Board (COB) technology, and the result is a highly water-resistant, durable device that is ultra-small and easy to carry. The drive body shines with a metallic gleam, and the capless design eliminates the need for a drive cap and the related chance of cap loss. The UC510 has a USB 2.0 interface, providing the required performance for most common data storage and transfer needs.

Mach Xtreme Technology Inc., a worldwide leader in top performance, high reliability and user-friendly designed PC components, adds 256GB model to expanding FX USB3.0 flash drives series today. This addition will join existing 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB models.

With its advanced reliability and spacious capacity, the FX 256 GB USB Flash Drive gives user easy and fast way to transfer and back-up large files. MX-FX models are compliant with next-generation USB 3.0 specifications and are optimized for newer PCs with USB 3.0 ports. The extensive compatibility testing ensures complete compatibility with ASUS mainboards and notebooks, offering consumers full USB 3.0 usability.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that its new line of high performance CompactFlash (CF) memory cards, the EXCERIA PRO series, will go on sale from April 27th in the Japanese market. Sales will also follow in Asia, Europe and North America. The initial line-up of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB cards offers the world's highest level read and write speeds and complies with the new Video Performance Guarantee Profile 2 (VPG-65) standard.

The EXCERIA PRO CF cards integrate Toshiba's high performance NAND flash memory and specially developed dedicated firmware. They achieve a read speed of 160 MB/s and write speed of 150 MB/s, the highest level yet reported.

Intel expanded its performance-segment SSD 335 series with a new entry-level 80 GB variant (model: SSDSC2CT080AK5). It joins the 180 GB and 240 GB variants, and occupies a price-point around the 110€ mark (excl VAT), which makes it particularly pricey in comparison to 120 GB drives. SSD 335 combines an LSI-SandForce SF-2281 series controller with Intel-made 20 nm MLC NAND flash.

Intel didn't update the product sheet with details of the new 80 GB model, but its bigger siblings offer sequential speeds as high as 500 MB/s reads, with up to 450 MB/s writes. Built in the 9.5 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, SSD 335 features SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and supports most standard consumer SSD features, including TRIM and NCQ. The drive should begin showing up on online stores worldwide, in both OEM (drive-only) and retail (includes bay-adapters and data migration software) trims.

ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. a world leader in DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today announced the start of shipments of its latest advanced in gaming technology, the XPG Gaming v2.0 Series DDR3-2600 MHz DRAM 8GB modules. These dual channel kits are designed and engineered to bring optimum performance to third generation Intel Core processors and the Z77 platform.

XPG DRAM modules signify Xtreme Performance Gear, providing the extreme speed and performance required by advanced users. The XPG Gaming series v2.0 is targeted specifically at the distinct performance and cooling needs of the worldwide gaming community. These latest DDR3 2600G 8GB modules offer new levels of data transfer speed, along with the many features that are hallmarks of the XPG series.

First shown to crowds at this year's International CES event in January, ASUS' first enthusiast SSD, the ROG RAIDR, is heading toward a mid-May launch. A few more of its pictures and specs sheets were posted by SweClockers. As detailed earlier, the RAIDR is a compound SSD in the PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, with PCI-Express 2.0 x2 interface (supports x4, x8, and x16 slots). It uses two SandForce SF2281-driven SSD subunits striped in a hardware-abstract RAID 0 configuration. The subunits use Toshiba-made 19 nm MLC NAND flash chips, with 16 KB page size.

The ROG RAIDR supports TRIM command, NCQ and SMART, despite being a RAID 0-based SSD. It is bootable, and supports Windows 8 Secure Boot. Installing an operating system on the drive doesn't require any F6 drivers, as the controller masquerades as a standard AHCI controller and a single disk, with the subunits and their RAID 0 stripe completely abstract. This way, the drive can accept TRIM commands from the OS.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, provides business update for the fourth quarter of 2013.

The Company is disclosing certain preliminary information about its fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 that ended on February 28, 2013, subject to certain closing procedures and further review by the Company and its auditors. As previously reported the Company estimated that revenue in each of the unreported quarters ending August 31, 2012 and November 30, 2012 is in the range of $65 million to $85 million. This range takes into effect the impact of the reclassification of certain customer costs from operating expenses to revenue, the significant reduction in channel inventory, the timing of revenue recognition and reserves for product returns. The preliminary revenue range for the unreported fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 is estimated to be between $65 million and $70 million.

Are you still spending your quality time waiting for your computer to boot up? Have you experienced lag problems while operating multiple applications? SP/Silicon Power, the world's leading provider of memory storage solutions, today introduces an addition of the Velox series 2.5" SATA III SSD - Velox V50 to solve your problems. The Velox V50 features the latest controller technology to provide a brand new computer experience in excellent performance and cost effectiveness for those who are about to retire their traditional hard drives.

Different from the other solutions in the market, SP Velox V50 is equipped with a brand new controller, delivering a more stable and more powerful user experiences. Combining with the latest firmware and advanced controller circuit design, Velox V50 is able to maintain a long-standing IOPS performance while using it under extended period.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing a 128-gigabit (Gb), 3-bit multi-level-cell (MLC) NAND memory chip using 10 nanometer (nm)-class process technology this month. The highly advanced chip will enable high-density memory solutions such as embedded NAND storage and solid state drives (SSDs).

"By introducing next-generation memory storage products like the 128Gb NAND chip, Samsung is extremely well situated to meet growing global customer needs," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Device Solutions Division, Samsung Electronics. "The new chip is a critical product in the evolution of NAND flash, one whose timely production will enable us to increase our competitiveness in the high density memory storage market."

HGST today announced the industry's fastest and most advanced enterprise-class, multi level cell (MLC) SAS SSD family - the Ultrastar SSD800MH, Ultrastar SSD800MM and Ultrastar SSD1000MR. From the market share leader in enterprise SAS/FC SSDs, these HGST drives are the first to double today's SAS interface speed.

Designed for the most demanding applications where "hot" data is accessed frequently, such as high-frequency trading, online banking, cloud computing, online gaming, and big data analytics, HGST's new 12 Gb/s SAS SSDs help increase input/output per second (IOPS) and improve response times to mission-critical data in cloud and traditional IT datacenters environments.

Crucial started shipping its M500 line of consumer SSDs. Available in 2.5-inch SATA (7 mm-thick), mSATA, and NGFF M.2 form-factors, the drives combine Micron 20 nm MLC NAND flash with a Marvell-made processor. All three form-factors take advantage of 6 Gb/s SATA. The drive is available in 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities for all three form-factors, while the 2.5-inch gets a 960 GB "terabyte-class" capacity option, as well.

Sequential read speeds on all capacities are as high as 500 MB/s, while sequential write speeds cap out at 130 MB/s and 250 MB/s for the 120 GB and 240 GB variants, respectively; and reach 400 MB/s on the 480 GB and 960 GB variants. The drives are backed by 3-year limited warranties, 1.2 million hours MTBF, and 72 TB total bytes written (TBW) write endurance (that's 40 GB per day). TRIM, NCQ, and SMART are standard issue. The 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB variants are priced at US $129.99, $219.99, $399.99, and $599.99, respectively.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today announced the launch of NBA themed USB flash drives. All thirty teams will be represented in the new product lineup, which is officially licensed by the National Basketball Association and available in the United States and Canada.

Each drive is emblazoned with a vivid team logo on one side, and the NBA logo on the other. All USB flash drives deliver the best of USB 2.0 transmission, and are introduced at 16 gigabyte capacity. According to Tom Lin, Managing Director, "We have had consistently good feedback from consumers on our previous cooperation with the NBA, so this time we brought more color, higher capacity, and a convenient sliding USB connector. With the higher resolution media that people are carrying around and sharing, these flash drives will be indispensable to any basketball fans."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today announced the launch of the enterprise grade SX1000L solid state drive (SSD). While the company is well-established in the consumer SSD market, this is ADATA's first offering specifically tailored towards server applications.

Taking advantage of its expertise in NAND flash memory technology, ADATA is emphasizing the reliability and performance of the SX1000L. It employs static wear-leveling technology to maximize device mean time between failures (MTBF) to 1,500,000 hours, providing the long-term dependability required by high density computing and heavy load server operations. Available in 2.5" standard SATA form factor, the SX1000L implements advanced controller technology to enhance read/write performance. Sequential read speeds reach 560 MB/sec, and sequential write is as high as 340 MB/sec, with IOPS of 73,000 and 45,000 (Maximum 4K random read and write, respectively).