14 DAY TRIAL // Market research firm iSupply predicts the global market for 32GB and higher NAND flash memory will reach about 530 million units in 2010, with 9.5 billion units set to ship by 2013 (in 16Gb equivalent units). Apparently eager to secure a portion of this market in advance, Samsung has launched two new flash memory products for mobile handsets. They are based on the company's advanced 32 gigabit (Gb) NAND flash technology and are a high-capacity 64GB moviNAND card and a high-density 32GB microSD card.
“Samsung’s high-density memory solutions bring the storage capacity levels of computing systems to small, mobile devices,” Dong-Soo Jun, executive vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Electronics, said. “The 64GB embedded memory, moviNAND, and the 32GB microSD card each greatly expand the data storage density of mobile devices, meeting customers’ memory requirements and ushering in a new era of mobile and IT device capacity growth.”
The 32GB micro secure digital (microSD) memory card is superior to the previous highest density microSD, which was based on the 40nm-class 16Gb NAND and had a 16GB capacity. The new model is based on the advanced 30nm class from Samsung and is 1mm-thick, with the portion that is inserted into the handset measuring only 0.7 mm in height.
The new moviNAND card has 64GB of storage and consists of 16 30nm-class 32Gb MLC NAND chips and a controller. With this release, the proprietary moviNAND is now available in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB forms. The 17-die stack was built by using 30-micron-thick chips and an advanced package technology.
The company has revealed that samples of the microSD are now being shipped to OEMs, with the card expected to enter mass production next month. On the other hand, the 64GB moviNAND has been in mass production from December.
The press release did not disclose pricing details.