According to a fresh Money Today SK news article, Samsung is expected to launch a next-generation Galaxy Ring model later this year—this tiny wearable device is touted to operate with a "dream battery" design. The South Korean giant's Electro-Mechanics division is reportedly tasked with the challenging development of "all-solid-state" batteries for all manner of ultraportable products. Yesterday's report suggests that Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Ring sequel—apparently scheduled for launch within Q4'25—will be driven by the Electro-Mechanics team's pioneering effort. The production of all-solid-state battery units is an expensive endeavor, so industry watchdogs have predicted tough retail conditions for the forthcoming "Galaxy Ring 2" rollout—the original unit was not exactly a "hot property" in terms of sales figures.

Money Today's inside sources reckon that the Electro-Mechanics branch will—eventually—fit all-solid-state battery designs inside new-gen earphones (aka Galaxy Buds) by Q4 2026, and very futuristic smartwatches by the end of 2027. Given cost considerations, larger all-solid-state solutions—potentially for usage in smartphones—are not in the pipeline. Around early February of this year, the development of Samsung's (inevitable) "Galaxy S26" mobile series was linked to alleged 6000+ mAh silicon-carbon battery units. The South Korean's smartphone engineering team is reportedly trying to play catch up with more advanced solutions, as devised by competitors in China. The status of Samsung's proprietary silicon-carbon prototype is the subject of much online debate, but certain insiders believe that employees are still working hard on the perfection of an ideal "battery formula."

Russian and Belarusian semiconductor manufacturers have achieved a significant milestone in domestic chip production capabilities. In collaboration with Belarus-based Planar, the Zelenograd Nanotechnology Center (ZNTC) has developed a new lithography system supporting 350 nm process technology for 8-inch (200 mm) silicon wafers. This development represents a strategic response to Western sanctions severely restricting Russia's access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The system employs solid-state laser technology to project circuit patterns onto photoresist-coated wafers through a photomask that defines the circuitry. After selective exposure, the photoresist undergoes chemical processing to build circuit structures. While the 350 nm node marks a critical capability for domestic semiconductor production, it sits almost three decades behind leading-edge fabrication processes in high-performance computing applications.

This technology is comparable to what powered Intel's Pentium II processors in the late 1990s. Despite this technological gap, the equipment will enable the production of various electronic components suitable for consumer electronics and certain specialized military applications where bleeding-edge performance isn't required. ZNTC has already outlined plans to develop a more advanced 130 nm lithography system by 2026 as part of a government-backed initiative to incrementally enhance domestic semiconductor capabilities. While unable to match the 3-5 nm processes currently deployed by global semiconductor leaders, this lithography system establishes a foundation for domestic chip manufacturing infrastructure, especially in the category of mature nodes. The success of this intermediate solution will likely influence government funding priorities as the country attempts to narrow the technological gap with Western semiconductor capabilities in the coming years.

Quantum networks—where entanglement is distributed across distant nodes—promise to revolutionize quantum computing, communication, and sensing. However, a major bottleneck has been scalability, as the entanglement rate in most existing systems is limited by a network design of a single qubit per node. A new study, led by Prof. A. Faraon at Caltech and conducted by A. Ruskuc et al., recently published in Nature (ref: 1-2), presents a groundbreaking solution: multiplexed entanglement using multiple emitters in quantum network nodes. By harnessing rare-earth ions coupled to nanophotonic cavities, researchers at Caltech and Stanford have demonstrated a scalable platform that significantly enhances entanglement rates and network efficiency. Let's take a closer look at the two key challenges they tackled—multiplexing to boost entanglement rates and dynamic control strategies to ensure qubit indistinguishability—and how they overcame them.

Breaking the Entanglement Bottleneck via Multiplexing
One of the biggest challenges in scaling quantum networks is the entanglement rate bottleneck, which arises due to the fundamental constraints of long-distance quantum communication. When two distant qubits are entangled via photon interference, the rate of entanglement distribution is typically limited by the speed of light and the node separation distance. In typical systems with a single qubit per node, this rate scales as c/L (where c is the speed of light and L is the distance between nodes), leading to long waiting times between successful entanglement events. This severely limits the scalability of quantum networks.

SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. ("SMART"), a Penguin Solutions, Inc. brand and a global leader in integrated memory solutions, solid-state drives, and hybrid storage products, announced today it is now sampling its redefined Non-Volatile CXL Memory Module (NV-CMM) to tier 1 OEMs based on the CXL 2.0 standard. This innovative product combines non-volatile high-performance DRAM memory, persistent flash memory and an energy source in a single removable EDSFF form factor to deliver superior reliability and serviceability for data-intensive applications. The NV-CMM module further expands the SMART family of CXL products introduced in the last year.

"Our NV-CMM represents a paradigm shift in memory technology for data centers," said Torry Steed, senior product marketing manager at SMART Modular Technologies. "By combining the benefits of non-volatile memory with the CXL standard, we're making it significantly easier for system integrators to incorporate compact, non-volatile, high performance persistent memory into their products."

Transcend Information, Inc., a leading global manufacturer of memory storage solutions, announced the release of the MTE255S, a PCIe M.2 solid-state drive. Featuring a PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface, it delivers impressive read speeds of up to 7,400 MB/s and write speeds of 6,500 MB/s. This SSD offers exceptional storage experiences for gamers, content creators, and business users. Whether it's high-performance gaming, advanced video editing, or rapid data processing, the MTE255S significantly boosts desktop and laptop performance to meet demanding application needs.

Experience Unmatched Speed and Capacity
The MTE255S combines a PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface with a multichannel controller to achieve blazing-fast data transfer speeds. Users experience smooth gaming performance, accelerated video editing and rendering, and seamless processing of large business datasets. With storage options up to 2 TB, the MTE255S offers generous space for extensive game libraries, media projects, and enterprise workloads.

The 2025 CES Global Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas, USA. With the theme "Dive In", this year's CES focuses on cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, sustainability, mobile technology, and human safety. Longsys, a leading innovator in memory technology, showcased a series of innovative memory products under its two major brands, highlighting the diversity and infinite possibilities of storage technology.

Among the cutting-edge products showcased, Longsys' first NFC portable solid-state drive (PSSD) garnered significant attention. Designed for enhanced data privacy and convenience, this PSSD supports unlocking invisible storage space via NFC, integrating regular functionality with data privacy protection. By simply tapping an NFC-enabled device, such as a smartphone, smartwatch, or NFC card - users can unlock private data effortlessly, making it an ideal solution for both personal and professional use.

Frore Systems has demonstrated the massive increase in performance possible with AirJet solid-state active cooling chips in the new Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14", the thinnest Notebook on the market at just 10.9 mm. The proof-of-concept Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14", upgraded with AirJet, achieves an incredible 50% increase in sustained CPU & AI performance, showing that now, consumers really can demand it all. Frore Systems will be showcasing the upgraded Samsung Notebook in January at CES 2025.

Frore Systems achieved the 50% performance boost in the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14", from 12 Watts to 18 Watts, by replacing the two large fans currently used in the Notebook with four AirJet chips. This innovative solution reduces the cooling solution footprint by 45% - the fans consuming 8,800 mm² of space vs the AirJet footprint of just 4,800 mm². Therefore, the extremely compact AirJet solution creates additional space inside the Galaxy Book4 Edge 14", potentially allowing for increasing the battery size from the current 55.9 Wh to 64.8 Wh - a 16% increase - improving video runtime from 20 hours to 23.2 hours.

PNY announced the addition of the CS2150 M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 5 x4 SSD to its lineup of solid-state drives. The CS2150 leads the way in advanced storage technology, utilizing the NVMe PCIe Gen 5 x4 interface to achieve exceptional data transfer speeds. With sequential read speeds reaching up to 10,300 MB/s and write speeds up to 8,600 MB/s, this groundbreaking solution elevates computing performance to new heights. Perfect for professionals, tech enthusiasts, content creators, and anyone demanding top-tier storage performance, the CS2150 sets a new standard for speed and efficiency.

Enhanced Gameplay with Microsoft DirectStorage
PNY's CS2150 SSD harnesses the power of Microsoft DirectStorage, a revolutionary Windows 11 feature that accelerates game load times and enhances image quality. Combined with the legendary PNY XLR8 Gaming DDR5 DRAM and a high-performance graphics card like the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16 GB XLR8 Gaming VERTO EPIC-X RGB Overclocked Triple Fan, you'll enjoy faster load times and smoother gameplay, giving you more time to spend immersed in the world of gaming.

Solidigm, a leading provider of innovative NAND flash memory solutions, announced today the introduction of the world's highest capacity PCIe solid-state drive (SSD): the 122 TB (terabyte) Solidigm D5-P5336 data center SSD. The D5-P5336 doubles the storage space of Solidigm's earlier 61.44 TB version of the drive and is the world's first SSD with unlimited Random Write endurance for five years—offering an ideal solution for AI and data-intensive workloads. Just how much storage is 122.88 TB? Roughly enough for 4K-quality copies of every movie theatrically released in the 1990s, 2.6 times over.

Data storage power, thermal and space constraints are accelerating as AI adoption increases. Power and space-efficient, the new 122 TB D5-P5336 delivers industry-leading storage efficiency from the core data center to the edge. Data center operators can deploy with confidence the 122 TB D5-P5336 from Solidigm, the proven QLC (quad-level cell) density leader with more than 100EB (exabytes) of QLC-based product shipped since 2018.

SEMCO (Samsung Electro-Mechanics) has developed an ultra-compact all-solid-state battery tailored for wearable devices. The innovative battery is an oxide-based small all-solid-state battery with an industry-leading energy density of 200 Wh/L.

This has achieved an equivalent level of energy density to lithium-ion batteries while being smaller in size, and SEMCO is currently promoting this product to customers through prototype evaluations. All-solid-state batteries utilize a non-flammable solid electrolyte for charging and discharging, enhancing safety and solid to external shocks, and allowing for various shapes, even at ultra-compact sizes.