In recent weeks the cost of flash memory has increased substantially. The commodity product, is for the most part, a stable consumable with pricing that fluctuations in single digit percentages. However, lately the prices have increased between 10-30%. As with any product there are variables which contribute to price and the following information might help explain why flash memory is getting more expensive.
The two largest manufacturers of flash memory (NAND memory) are Samsung and Toshiba. Together they account for about 70% of the world’s flash. These companies produce a wide variety of flash memory models and the factories have various levels of quality for the output of their product.
Typically the high performance memory that gets the best test ratings is sold to large consumers like Apple, Nokia and Sony. As the ratings for the speed of the memory drop, these variants get pushed into the low-end market segments, such as USB drives and inexpensive MP3 players and other promotional gadgets.
In Q3 2012 Toshiba made an announcement they will reduce world wide production by 30%. Since this time, flash pricing has remained stable and has not decreased in cost.
With the on-going patent battles between Apple and Samsung the Cupertino based company made a decision
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Samsung has a new Central Station WLED monitor system in 23 inch or 27 inch format. The wireless solution is very unique in that it automatically detects your devices with in the 1 meter range. So as you approach with your laptop, the monitor will automatically sync up with your PC.
In additional the Samsung WLED includes USB ports on the monitor so as your PC approaches, those peripherals hanging off the side will also become usable with your laptop. I should actually re-edit this post and mention netbook as those screens are way too small and something like this would be ideal.
Samsung didn’t get a change to post lag-time between user input on the PC and the reaction of the monitor for said input, but I’d venture to say it’s minimal – Samsung doesn’t cheat corners.
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Samsung is looking to put a new twist to the classic digital camera with multiple USB ports. The idea is simple, once a picture is taken, the folks in the picture can turn over their thumb drives for a quick download of the picture just taken.
Not a bad idea considering most of us now have USB sticks in our pocket, car or computer bag. I think the wifi SD card is a bit better of an idea, but this too will work.
The concept camera from Samsung has three female USB ports to accept mass storage devices [tech term for USB stick] and a male USB for connecting to a computer for downloading.
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We have already seen USB sticks getting to the 64GB capacity, but it doesn’t go without some serious trouble or expense in making them. Currently all 64GB sticks are made up of four 16GB NAND chips. The drives are huge and far more expensive than a 1TB USB hard drive. But this will all change…
Samsung announced that it has begun mass production the industry’s first 3-bit-per-cell, 64 Gb (8 GB) MLC NAND flash chip using 20-nm-class processing. In addition to the larger capacity, Samsung’s new NAND flash will use Toggle DDR (Double Data Rate) 1.0 specifications, offering a 60-percent higher productivity level than the previous 30-nm-class, 32 Gb 3-bit NAND using SDR (Single Data Rate).
Samsung’s chips are expected to arrive in USB flash drives, Secur Digital cards, smartphones and SSDs while replacing the current 4 GB (32 Gb) devices on the market. Samsung did not comment on time-frame; however the new devices may begin to appear in the market and offer 8 GB minimum and 64 GB maximum.
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Typically we see a USB monitor in the form of a screen with some sort of VGA converter with a USB port, like the one from USB Fever, but today we see a different version. Samsung has introduced a monitor which runs by simply plugging in the USB cable to any laptop. There is no adapter or converter required.
The conversion from an analog signal to digital signal is made within the monitor itself, thus eliminating the need for external VGA converter.
The Samsung model reports an impressive 30,000:1 contrast with speedy 5ms response time.
Samsung did not comment on availability within the states or the pricing, but it’s nice to see the trend of external monitors go the route of USB. After all, what other connectivity is as simple and convenient?
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The two largest manufacturers of flash memory (NAND memory) are Samsung and Toshiba. Together they account for about 70% of the world’s flash. These companies produce a wide variety of flash memory models and the factories have various levels of quality for the output of their product.
Typically the high performance memory that gets the best test ratings is sold to large consumers like Apple, Nokia and Sony. As the ratings for the speed of the memory drop, these variants get pushed into the low-end market segments, such as USB drives and inexpensive MP3 players and other promotional gadgets.
In Q3 2012 Toshiba made an announcement they will reduce world wide production by 30%. Since this time, flash pricing has remained stable and has not decreased in cost.
With the on-going patent battles between Apple and Samsung the Cupertino based company made a decision
Continue Reading
In additional the Samsung WLED includes USB ports on the monitor so as your PC approaches, those peripherals hanging off the side will also become usable with your laptop. I should actually re-edit this post and mention netbook as those screens are way too small and something like this would be ideal.
Samsung didn’t get a change to post lag-time between user input on the PC and the reaction of the monitor for said input, but I’d venture to say it’s minimal – Samsung doesn’t cheat corners.
We have already seen 