Macbook Air triggered the evolution of new NAND Flash Storage

Editor: Anke Schröter

Solid-State Drive is always the potential target from Flash vendor perspective since the flash consumption is several times of the consumption from UFD and memory card, according to DRAMeXchange.

From consumer views, SSD transmission speed is twice faster than traditional HDD (Hard-Disk Drive) and featured with better power consumption and anti-shocking design. With the potential growing demand from High-Definition multimedia and large files, SSD demand will be steadily pulled up given the falling Flash price in coming future. Due to sustained high level of Flash price in 2009 and 2010, SSD penetration rate in notebook cannot be significantly improve. However, Apple launched new Macbook Air in 4Q/2010 featured with new m-SATA interface SSD given the ultra-thin outlook design. We found the performance will not be compromised under the thinner design from the help of outperformed SSD. Thus, other notebook vendors are said to considering putting m-SATA concept in next generation notebook design. Featured with light and thin form factor, m-SATA SSD is also the appropriate solution for the emerging devices such as tablet PC and embedded device. Since 2011 will be the strong year for smartphone and tablet PC, Flash vendors also aggressively launch the similar product such as Intel introduced new SSD 310 series in December. DRAMeXchange expect the new SSD is not only benefited for consumers but also will help Flash vendors to boost the NAND Flash demand. Thus, 2011 NAND Flash demand application will be more diversified and healthy.