New 25Nm Flash NAND Capable Of 8GB Storage

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Corporation and Boise, Idaho-headquartered Micron Technology Inc have jointly developed a new NAND technology which crunches up to 8GB of storage in a single NAND device.

The new technology is expected to make more storage to the new generation mobile consumer devices such as smartphones, personal music and media players (PMP). The new technology also will prove useful as a supplement to the high-performance solid-state drives (SSD).

The entire process works in the 25nm range, making it the world’s smallest NAND technology that has been developed by the two companies. The device measures just 167 square mm which is roughly equal to the central hole found in the CD. Yet, the device has the capacity to store more than 10 times the capacity of a standard CD.

Intel and Micron have together spun off a new joint venture called IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) just for this purpose. Founded in 2006, IMFT’s first mandate was to produce NAND devices using a 50nm process, which was scaled to 34nm in 2008. The latest in line, the 25nm process, makes IMFT a world leader in the industry of semiconductor lithography.

Read more about the latest development in NAND storage technology, here.

Sun Launches New Storage System – Sun 7310

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Sun Microsystems Inc has announced the launch of a new storage system.

Christened “Storage 7310″, the new system is priced starting from USD 40,165. Measuring about 1.8 inches (H) by about 17 inches (W) by about 28 inches (D), the device weighs approx 18.5 kilograms.

7310 has two quad-core AMD Opteron processors, with single controller or dual controller (optional), and a main memory of 64 Gb per controller. The system has a Read Flash Accelerator or up to 600 Gb per controller. Four GbE ports interface the system with the rest of the computing equipment. There are three internal Low Profile PCIe slots. For network connectivity, the system provides dual GigE UTP and MMF, Quad gigabit Ethernet UTP and dual 10 GigE Fiber XFP.

It is the storage capacity that is its most important feature; for the system offers 96 TB space, with 1TB 7,200 rpm SATA disks. The file system is Sun’s own ZFS, Ver 2009.Q2. Data compression at four levels is made available to the system administrator. Data reliability and integrity has been sought to be ensured through RAID 5 and 6. 7310 can be remotely managed through SNMP v2/v3. 

Read about the latest storage system from Sun, here.

Computer upgrades

I recently found my computer to be running very slow. While it usually handled several instances of Firefox, Itunes, and World of Warcraft with ease, it just didn’t seem to be its old self. I scratched my head wondering what could be the problem, and ran an antivirus program. Nope that wasn’t the problem. Then it hit me; I only have 1 GB of RAM! The stuff is surprisingly cheap now, and I was able to get a 2 GB stick for just $25. My gaming experience has improved vastly since buying more RAM. Let’s take a look at some cheap and affordable upgrades to improve your gaming machine!

Like I previously stated, you can’t go wrong with more RAM. It used to seem like 1 GB was a bunch, but these days you need at least 2 GB for a solid gaming experience. I personally like OCZ and Kingston memory the best. You can get them at very reasonable prices. RAM is easily the most bang for your buck.

Graphics cards are the heart and soul of every gaming machine. If you haven’t got a new one in the past two years, its probably time to consider an upgrade. One of the most popular items on the market at the moment is the XFX GeForce 9800 GT. It features 512 MB, and will greatly enhance your HD experience. Best of all, it costs just $99.99! Can you imagine slaying Onyxia with this bad boy? That dream can be a reality when you upgrade your video card!

Upgrades are a very important thing for a hardcore gamer to keep in mind. In our last post we discussed RAM and Graphics Cards. Those aren’t the only things you should get of course! Several other items can make your life as a gamer easier. For example, cordless mice, HD monitors, glow in the dark keyboards, and routers. Let’s take a look at some of these awesome accessories.

I’ve just recently purchased an HD monitor. Combined with the power of my GeForce graphics card, I can play any game on the highest settings and get crisp and clear video. The picture quality is simple excellent on HD monitors. Not only will you be able to play your games on the monitor, but you will also be able to watch your favorite television shows and movies. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

Cordless mice are truly one of the best things I’ve seen. I get sick of all the cords around my computer. Not only are they a fire hazard, but I’m sure you have found yourself trying to move your mouse only to find that the cord has grown too short on its way from the computer to your mousepad. Cordless mice remove this problem. They don’t take very long to charge, and help to remove much of the clutter on your desk.

Many of people haven’t completely memorized the keyboard layout. This makes it hard to type at night when it gets dark. You don’t want to have the light on to disturb your family, so what are you supposed to do? Buy a glow in the dark keyboard! They are pretty cheap, and you will be able to see all of the keys very clearly without turning a light on.

Lag can ruin any gaming experience. Nothing is worse than the feeling of being called a “noob” after dying because your internet connection dropped for a split second. Buying a new router could be the answer to your prayers. It will speed up your wireless connection and allow you to tackle your internet foes with gusto.  Upgrading with some or all of these items will have you gaming like a pro in no time at all.

Sun Launches Servers With SSD Technology

Santa Clara, California-based Sun Microsystems Inc has launched a new version of its x64 servers, chip multi-threaded (CMT) servers and Blade servers with solid state drive (SSD) flash technology.

The advantage of SSDs is a dramatic performance improvement, with application response time reducing by up to 65 times. The technology takes up less space – up to 2.5 inch enterprise SFF, measuring 10cm X 7cm X 7cm – and consumes less power, thus doubling server throughput. This in turn brings down the total cost of ownership. SSDs come in 32GB user-addressable capacities.

According to the Sun press release and associated documentation, the Flash SSDs have a reliability of working nonstop for three years, and a MTBF of 2 million hours, and on an average have a minimum useful life of five years.

Sun’s x64 servers and blade systems are built upon multiple chip architectures such as UltraSPARC, AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors. These systems run diverse OS such as Solaris 10, Open Solaris, Linux, Windows and VMWare. The SSDs have been claimed to double the performance of these machines in terms of both time-reduction and lower power-consumption.

Read more about the latest launch by Sun, here.

World’s Smallest Functional SRAM Memory Cell Developed

A technical paper presented at the 2008 International Electron Devices Meeting, San Francisco, California, announced the development of a Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) cell which, with an area of 0.128 sq-micrometers is the world’s smallest SRAM cell.

What this technology means to end-users and to business are its superior features over the conventional planar-FET cells which can help manufacture processors that are smaller, faster and less-power-intensive.  Expect computing devices in the future that are therefore smaller, faster and require less power to run them than ever before.

The new technology makes use of fin-shaped Field Effect Transistors (FinFETs), and has been developed from a high-k/metal gate (HKMG) material.  FinFET transistors have an appearance of a fish’s fin, and comprise undoped silicon channels, without the usual impurities that bog conventional device areas. The elimination of impurities has led to improved transistor characteristic variability by more than 28%.  Undesirable variability and stability are issues that are becoming critical in the 22nm technology node, and the new breakthrough is said to have addressed them to a good extent.

The three companies that have jointly worked on the SRAM technology are IBM, AMD and Toshiba.

Read more about the latest breakthrough in memory technology here.

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