Micron Innovations Blog » Kirstin Bordner

Tech Talk: RealSSD™ C400 and the 2011 SSD Market

Kirstin Bordner — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:21:36 +0000

Dean Klein, Micron’s Vice President of Memory System Development, discusses the new RealSSD C400 drive and how SSDs will grow in 2011 with the influx of ultra-mobile notebooks. Dean also discusses how the leading-edge performance and capacities of the C400 are poised to serve this market.

Trends in Flash Memory–The Future is Clear

Kirstin Bordner — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:17:24 +0000

We recently sat down with Glen Hawk, our VP of NAND Solutions, to talk about the company’s direction and vision for NAND Flash memory. It’s a candid look at the challenges that NAND technology presents and our response in terms of developing NAND solutions that can go the distance and continue to provide advantages and create exciting possibilities well into the future.

The RealSSD™ C300 Ranked #16 on PCWorld’s 100 Best Tech Products of 2010

Kirstin Bordner — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 18:06:02 +0000

PCWorld recently published its list of top technology products of 2010, and coming in at No. 16 out of the 100 best in the world is the RealSSD C300 solid-state drive. In a year that has seen a fair share of breakthrough technologies – Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4, the latest version of the Amazon Kindle, and Google’s Android 2.2 smartphone operating system, just to name a few – earning a spot in the top 20 is a notable achievement. And in the Best of 2010 subcategory of “Storage and Useful Gadgets,” the C300 came in at the very top of the list.

In its description of the product, PCWorld noted that the C300 “is the first SSD we’ve tested to support 6-gigabits-per-second SATA, which enables faster write speeds because it can push more data through the pipe” and that it “delivered top-flight overall performance and the best write performance.”

PCWorld’s editorial staff evaluates hundreds of tech products throughout the year, spanning the full range of offerings from smartphones and PCs to software and storage and beyond. Only the best of the best make it onto the prestigious top 100 list each year, underscoring the truly standout capabilities of the RealSSD C300.

Some of the other products joining the C300 in the top 20 include Samsung’s Galaxy Tab PC (#5) and Epic 4G smartphone (#8), Google’s Chrome Web browser (#14) and Microsoft Office 2010 (#19). Make sure to read the full article for a complete list of PCWorld’s 100 Best Tech Products of 2010.

Hitachi-LG Data Storage Uses Micron 25nm NAND in New Hybrid Drive

Kirstin Bordner — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:50:52 +0000

Micron today announced that our 25nm NAND is being used in a new all-in-one storage and media solution from Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS), called Hybrid Drive. The innovations Micron has made in NAND flash memory continue to spark new and compelling end-product designs from our customers – the Hybrid Drive being one of them. We wanted to learn a bit more about the Hybrid Drive, so we asked a few questions to HLDS’ Jack Lee, Senior Manager, and here’s what he had to say:

What exactly is a Hybrid Drive? How does this new product fit into the HLDS product line?
The Hybrid Drive is an Optical Disc Drive (ODD) with embedded NAND Flash memory, providing a combined storage configuration of an ODD+HDD+Flash Storage in the same platform architecture. It’s primarily targeted at the thin & light notebook PC applications. In standard notebook applications where there is still an HDD or SSD used for longer-term storage, the Hybrid Drive would be used for caching and launching applications, which provides an increase in system performance.

What are the performance advantages of the Hybrid Drive?
The Hybrid Drive provides approximately a 50 to 70 percent performance improvement for PC booting, multitasking and application loading times when compared to a standalone HDD. And within the same solution, we are offering high-quality DVD media management.

Why did you choose Micron’s 25nm NAND?
The high-performance, high-capacity and small form factor of Micron’s 25nm NAND played an important role in design of the Hybrid Drive.

Were there specific market demands or other drivers that necessitated this design approach?
The primary market driver was improving PC performance without disrupting current motherboard designs. With this in mind, we focused on creating a solution that provided an all-in-one storage and media/Blu-Ray solution in an ODD form factor.

New Accolades for the RealSSD C300

Kirstin Bordner — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:01:22 +0000

Our RealSSD C300 has garnered some impressive industry accolades since its introduction back in December. Recently, the RealSSD C300 was awarded the Most Innovative Solid-State Storage Technology from UBM TechInsights, beating out both Intel and Toshiba’s drives. This award is great validation for Micron’s C300 design since TechInsights’ selection process includes a rigorous product tear-down and in-depth technical analysis. (Side note, in the coming weeks we’ll be featuring a post from an analyst at TechInsights that provides more information on the benchmarks that went into review of the drives they tested. Stay tuned!)

We also continue to see great feedback from reviewers and press—we’re excited about some recent reviews and rankings from Tom’s Hardware and PC World.

The analysts at Tom’s Hardware noted that the C300 “remains the very best choice these days.” While Melissa Perenson at PC World states that the C300 offers “top-flight overall performance, and the best write performance we’ve seen.”

So my question is, do you have a C300? If not, you should. I have one in my MacBook Pro and the difference is night and day. Visit Crucial.com to order yours.

Why SSD Testing Standards are Important

Kirstin Bordner — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:55:02 +0000

One of the great benefits of the Flash Memory Summit is the opportunity to interact with other people and companies that are serious about advancing Flash technology. One of those is Eden Kim, CEO of Calypso Systems—a company that builds SSD testers and is helping lead the push for standardized test methods (you might remember our recent post on their P300 performance testing results).

On Wednesday, I interviewed Eden about what his company does, how their testers work, and why standards are so important. He also shared his thoughts on how our P300 SSD did against the competition. Take a look:

Updates from the Flash Memory Summit

Kirstin Bordner — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:10:55 +0000

The 2010 Flash Memory Summit has been a great show—lots of attendees and new innovations in flash (remember our post from yesterday?). For those of you who couldn’t make it, we pulled together a quick video summary of what’s going on in the Micron booth.

The RealSSD P300—Dramatic Performance Improvements for Enterprise Apps

Kirstin Bordner — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:45:37 +0000

I had the chance to sit-down with Dean Klein, Vice President of Memory System Development at Micron to talk about the RealSSD™ P300 solid-state drive that was announced today. We had a good conversation about the drive, how it compares competitively, and why it’s important to be a NAND manufacturer in SSDs.

Take a look at the video and if you have any questions, let us know. I’ll bring Dean in to answer a few!

What’s the future for PCM?

Kirstin Bordner — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:13:42 +0000

With the recent Numonyx acquisition, we’ve heard lots of questions about Micron’s commitment to phase change memory (PCM). Ed Doller, Vice President and Chief Memory Systems Architect, addressed some of these questions in a recent keynote at the MemCon conference in San Jose. His talk focused on PCM’s future as a viable, next-generation, nonvolatile memory and its position in the memory hierarchy. We’ll provide a video of his full presentation later this week on our blog.

In the meantime, we wanted to share some in-depth insight on PCM and the reasons why Micron is supporting this technology. Greg Atwood, Micron senior fellow and resident PCM expert, has authored a paper on “The Evolution of Phase Change Memory,” which offers some interesting technical perspective on the product, its benefits, and future potential.

For a high-level description of PCM history and features, download the white paper.

You can also request PCM samples and read more about our current PCM product line at micron.com/pcm (PCM product details are listed under our “Navigate Numonyx” flyout as we work to integrate the two web sites). As always, feel free to comment if you have any questions.

25nm NAND Scores Award for Most Innovative Process Technology

Kirstin Bordner — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:03:53 +0000

In the battle for process technology leadership, Micron and Intel’s NAND Flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), wins. Micron and Intel’s 25nm NAND was awarded Most Innovative Process Technology by UBM TechInsights, beating out Samsung’s 48nm 1Gb DDR3 and Hynix’ 32nm 2Gb MLC Flash, among other leading memory processes.

Here’s an excerpt from TechInsight’s press release announcing IMFT’s receipt of this award (the full press release can be viewed here.)

“The technical and manufacturing prowess of IMFT has been proven once again by the introduction of their 25nm 8GB 2-bit/cell MLC Flash. While most pundits have speculated that NAND has hit the wall, IMFT has continued to be successful with their aggressive path of NAND scaling.”