Micron gets real in solid-state drives
Stupid is as stupid does
Bank of America analyst Krish Sankar wrote in a research note. Sankar doesn't see the positive long-term results of productivity increases rather without Novellus bringing new technologies to its customers.
Mark LaPedus
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EE Times
(08/05/2008 12:01 AM EDT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Micron Technology Inc. is expanding its efforts in the emerging but competitive solid-state drive (SSD) market, by rolling out a pair of products based on its 50-nm NAND flash technology.
The Boise, Idaho-based company is also developing SSD drives, based on its recently-announced, 34-nm NAND process technology.
The company recently entered the SSD market, by introducing a product for the client or notebook PC sector. The newer products, dubbed the RealSSD line, are geared for both the enterprise computing and notebook applications, said Justin Sykes, director of marketing for SSD products at Micron.
Micron, which has seen limited success with its previous SSDs, now appears to have found the right formula. ''Micron has finally delivered a competitive product for both the notebook and server markets based on the performance cited. These next-generation SSD solutions are aimed at notebook and server markets, but realistically both markets won't begin to have a meaningful impact until 2010 and beyond,'' said Joseph Unsworth, an analyst with Gartner Inc. (Stamford, Conn.).
Indeed, SSDs are not expected to take off for some time, due to cost and related issues. In addition to the marketing front, Micron faces some other challenges in the arena. ''The key will be its ability to continue to innovate on the controller and flash management component of the SSD and whether they can build the infrastructure necessary to deliver these solutions,'' the analyst said.
Micron is one of a plethora of companies that is competing in the SSD market. Most of the NAND flash suppliers have entered the SSD fray, including Micron's NAND partner: Intel Corp. Micron and Intel are involved in a NAND manufacturing venture, dubbed IM Flash Technologies LLC.
Samsung, Toshiba and others are also competing in the emerging SSD market. SSDs promise to replace traditional hard disk drives in select applications. But SSDs are still more expensive and reportedly less reliable than hard drives.
Avian Securities recently found the rate of returns on SSD-based notebooks from one major manufacturer ranges from 20-to-30 percent. Dell confirmed that it was the manufacturer named in the report.
Dell has reportedly backpeddled from those claims. Micron's Sykes characterized the report from Avian as inaccurate, saying that the claims are unfounded.
Besides touting the reliability of SSDs, Sykes also said that the cost ''delta will narrow" between SSDs and hard drives.
Micron claims to have the right SSD products at the right time. The new drives from the company include the enterprise-class RealSSD P200 and the client-focused RealSSD C200. Geared for notebook PCs and related products, the C200 is based on 50-nm multi-level cell (MLC) NAND technology.
''As for Micron's SSD, there's something they didn't highlight. The PC version (the P200) has an internal DRAM just like an Enterprise SSD does. It's just a smaller DRAM, so the drive can be cheaper. This is key to making an SSD that performs well in the PC,'' said Jim Handy, an analyst with Objective Analysis.
Meanwhile, aimed for the enterprise and server market, the P200 is more than 10 times faster at accessing transactional data when compared to a typical enterprise hard drive, according to Micron. It achieves sub-millisecond latency while a typical enterprise hard drive has an average latency of approximately 8 milliseconds, according to the company.
The P200 offerings range in density from 16 gigabytes (GBs) to 128GBs and are available in a standard 2.5-inch form factor. Based on 50-nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND technology, the P200 provides 3Gb/s SATA-based sequential read and write speed of up to a maximum of 250 megabytes per second (MB/s).
The P200 consumes about one-tenth the power of a typical data center hard drive, operating at 2.5 watts in active mode and under at 0.3 watts in idle. In contrast, data center hard drives typically consume anywhere between 8 to 28 watts.
Additionally, with its low-wattage and high temperature range, the P200 operates at a temperature range of zero to 70 degrees Celsius, where a hard drive operates at 5 to 55 degrees Celsius. The P200 offers a mean time between failure (MTBF) rate of approximately two million hours compared to 300,000 to 500,000 MTBF of an hard drive.
What's next?
In 2009, Micron will expand its SSDs, based on 34-nm MLC and SLC technology. Intel and Micron recently leapfrogged the competition and claimed the technical lead in the NAND flash memory market.
Reportedly moving ahead of Toshiba, Samsung and others in the process race, the Intel-Micron duo have introduced the industry's first sub-40-nm NAND flash device, by rolling out 34-nm, 32-gigabit (Gbit) multi-level cell (MLC) chip. Previously, the leading-edge NAND device from Intel and Micron was a 50-nm part.
''Micron will be able to leverage its 34-nm NAND solutions so that it is able to compete effectively on cost,'' Gartner's Unsworth said.
There are other design considerations. ''Price declines by migration to MLC will be essential, but so will be maintaining/enhancing the performance and endurance of these solutions and making them more appealing to both segments that Micron is pursuing,'' he said.
''However, user education must also increase so that the benefits will be widely understood to justify the higher price for less storage,'' he added. ''This will take time which is why SSD will begin to have an impact in NAND late next year, but again won't have a meaningful impact until 2010 and beyond.'' |
