14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has generally been mainly known for its central processing units, as its storage products have not exactly been a significant part of the company's marketing plans over the years. Even so, however, the Santa Clara chip maker seems rather aggressive in its development of solid state drives, with one of the more recent advancements in this area being the 25nm NAND developed jointly with Micron. A more recent report suggests that the company will be putting special emphasis on further improving SSDs, with plans even supposedly including 400GB and 600GB models by the end of the year.
Intel is supposedly planning on updating its enterprise-class SSD line with what is dubbed the Lyndonville family. These will either complement or replace the existing 32GB and 64GB X25-E SSDs with 100GB, 200GB and 400GB models. This lineup is scheduled for the fourth quarter of the ongoing year and will be based on multi-level cell NAND flash memory chips boasting the 34nm manufacturing process.
As for the mainstream and consumer solid state drive families, the company will release MLC-based Postville Refresh drives made with the 20nm-class process technology (in IM Flash fabs). This will provide the X25-M SSD family with models of 160GB, 300GB and 600GB capacities, while the X18-M thin-and-light notebook storage units will boast 150GB and 300GB. The X25-V will come with 80GB of storage.
The fact that Intel is planning on using MLC instead of SLC chips is rather surprising, especially on the enterprise front where the SLC chips' higher reliability and performance is preferred, even despite the higher price. Intel's move might mean that the IT giant aims to improve the reliability and performance level of MLC Flash and bring it in line with enterprise-class standards while keeping a lower price point than that of single-level cell chips. Unfortunately, there is no word on the actual prices that the upcoming SSDs will sport.
Intel did not comment on the report.