Samsung, the world’s largest producer of high-capacity solid state drives (SSDs), has begun mass-producing its 1.8 inch SSD, with a 64 Gigabyte (GB) capacity, for notebook computers; this move brings SSDs one step closer to killing the conventional hard disk.

Samsung’s 64GB SSD is the highest density SSD available using 51nm technology and consisting of 64 eight Gigabit (Gb) single-level cell flash memory chips. Each chip has a circuitry 1/2500th the width of a human hair.

“We see sharply increasing interest in SSDs among OEMs worldwide amid a growing push to launch premium SSD-based notebooks, particularly in the ultra-mobile category,” said Jim Elliott, director, flash marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc.

Aside from the price, SSD’s have a clear advantage over the conventional hard disk. There is no initial spin-up required, allowing a speedy startup, and no moving parts equals super-fast seek and read times; SSDs have seek speeds hundreds of times faster than a mechanical disk.

Samsung is currently leading the SSD war in read and write speeds; their 50-nanometer process technology offers speeds nearly 5 times greater than that of Intel’s NAND memory.

Since the SSD has no moving parts, there is literately no sound emitted from the device, they have a greater reliability due to resisting shock, and they consume far less power than their mechanical counterpart; Samsung rates its 64GB SSD to improve the battery life of notebooks by up to 20%.

Samsung expects the sales of SSD units will increase at a 270% rate between today and 2010, making the SSD the largest growth segment in the NAND flash industry.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 5:59 am under Technology.

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