Top 10 Product Innovations of 2009

Let’s commemorate the close of the year with … a list!

OK, to be honest, ending the year with a Top 10 List is not very, um, well, innovative. But it’s what’s on our list that’s innovative. And the year 2009 for Micron and Lexar Media can be summarized like this: Bigger. Faster. Better.

So, that’s our Top 10 list for 2009, innovatively reduced to three memorable points.

Still not ready to let go of tradition? Then, on with the Micron and Lexar Top 10 Innovations of 2009 countdown:

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Announcing the new RealSSD C300

To explain why today’s announcement of Micron’s new RealSSD C300 is a game-changer for speed and storage in notebook and desktop PCs, I asked our SSD expert, Dean Klein, to share some of the thinking that went into the product and what you’ll experience the first time you boot up a computer with a RealSSD C300 inside.

Advanced MCPs for the Changing Mobile Market

An interview with Eric Spanneut, director of mobile memory marketing.

Chris Smith: Eric, thanks for talking with me today. I’ve noticed that Micron has been focusing more and more energy on the mobile market. Today, the company introduced a new line of MCPs; could you tell me a bit about these products?

Eric Spanneut: We are announcing the adoption of our latest process technologies—both NAND and DRAM—to our line of high-end MCPs. It means that we have leveraged our 34nm single-level cell (SLC) technology on the NAND side, as well as our 50nm technology on the low-power DRAM side.

Chris: Is this the first 50nm designed into your MCP products?

Eric: This is our first monolithic 2Gb LPDRAM, which is being adopted by our MCP product line.

Chris: What range of the mobile market will these MCPs serve?

Eric: These products will serve the high-end feature phone market, and the smart phone market that uses open operating system like Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian, as well as the nascent mobile internet device (MID) market.

Chris: I notice that this MCP uses LPDDR, but I know you manufacture LPDDR2; when will you transition this MCP to LPDDR2?

Eric: We see growing interest in LPDDR2, but first adoption by handset vendors won’t happen until second half of 2010. We expect LPDDR to be the front-runner in terms of volume for the next three to four years. That said, when the transition does begin, handset vendors will recognize significant advantages with LPDDR2, including reduced pin count, higher frequency and a better power budget.

Chris: So, if LPDDR2 has these benefits, why isn’t it being widely adopted at this time?

Eric: The mobile value chain is a very complex one with a complex ecosystem. It always takes a long time for a new technology to be massively adopted.

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Windows 7: One Small Step for SSDs, a Giant Step for NAND-kind

Microsoft’s new Windows 7 is the first operating system to detect the presence of a solid state drive (SSD) in a system and then optimize the OS to boost performance and endurance of the drive’s NAND flash memory blocks.

Call it another sign the era of mechanical hard drive domination is ending. And another small step toward flash freedom.

“This is the first step, and as good as Windows 7 is for SSDs, it’s still a baby step with so much more potential ahead,” Dean Klein, Micron’s SSD guru and vice president of memory system development told me in an interview.

I wanted to talk to Dean for the SSD perspective on Windows 7 after last week’s conversation with Micron’s Matthias Buchner on what impact Windows 7 will have on DRAM.

Dean was kind enough to break away from his busy schedule developing Micron’s next generation RealSSD™ products to wax evangelical about the breakthrough that Windows 7 represents in designing operating systems that optimize SSD technology, rather than accommodate the shortcomings of the mechanical hard drive.

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Ready for Windows 7? Don’t Forget the Memory.

I had a chance to sit down with Micron’s Matthias Buchner, director of segment marketing for Micron’s DRAM product group, to talk about the launch of Windows 7, the memory impact and other trends in the industry.

Chris Smith: Thanks Matthias for talking with me. I was hoping you could give us some perspective on how the launch of Windows 7 today will impact DRAM demand?

Matthias Buchner:  Sure, happy to talk with you. It’s important that we first look at it from the OS perspective, and then I’ll touch on the DRAM impact. In general, consumers have been waiting for a reason to purchase an upgraded PC for years. Whereas Windows Vista was an evolutionary step, industry insiders believe that Windows 7 is the revolutionary catalyst that will bring would-be PC buyers off of the sidelines and into the PC market.  While I expect that Windows 7 memory content will increase to 4GB from 2GB, I also believe that the launch of Windows 7 will spur DRAM bit growth through increased PC unit sales. Unit growth should be driven by consumers in calendar 2010, followed by the enterprise applications in calendar 2011.

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