Roadmap revised in order to use more 25nm memory from IM Flash

Jun 16, 2010 13:37 GMT  ·  By

Though a hardware or PC maker usually has a strict plan when it comes to future product releases, it is not unheard of for that roadmap to suffer changes. Products can be canceled or moved up in anticipation of rivals' tactics or certain technologies can be postponed in order to allow resources to be used for more pressing matters. One of the major modifications to Intel's roadmap was made back when the Larrabee was canceled. Now, it appears that the SSD roadmap is also suffering some changes.

X-bit labs claims to have seen the plans for what lies ahead in the area of solid state storage. Intel has been aggressively promoting its SSDs, being bent on becoming a strong presence on the enterprise market. Previously, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory was the first choice of the company when it came to new products. However, with the rise of the so-called Enterprise MLC, or eMLC, new opportunities have appeared.

eMLC has a significantly higher number of design cycles than regular MLC. For example, 32nm MLC has about 5,000, whereas eMLC made on the same process reaches 30,000. This endurance makes the latter much more convenient for data centers, servers and HPC arrays. Most importantly, Intel intends to use not 32nm, but 25nm-based eMLC from IM Flash, whose performance and endurance will be even higher. Basically, 25nm eMLC should become a convenient replacement for SLC NAND.

As it stands, Intel has pushed back the Lyndonville enterprise SSDs to the first quarter of 2011 (previously they were slated for the fourth quarter of 2010). This will allow the series to skip 34nm eMLC entirely. Unfortunately, the actual specifications of the new NAND are not known, but they may be superior to those of the special eMLC that Micron showed off last year and which had 300,000 write cycles, 3 times more than even standard SLC. The other interesting decision on Intel's part is to not bring out the X25-V 80GB value model until 2011, leaving Q4 2010 to the 25nm 40GB version.