Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone
Samsung starts mass producing 16 Gigabit NAND chips
IT News Online tells us that Samsung has begun mass producing 16 Gigabit NAND flash chips. "In rolling out the densest NAND flash in the world, we are throwing open the gates to a much wider playing field for flash-driven consumer electronics," IT News quoted Jim Elliott, director of flash marketing.
As you probably know, high density data storage is a prime ingredient of flash-based music players like the iPod Shuffle and Nano lines, and smart phones like the iPhone (as well as digital cameras, handheld computers and memory cards). Denser storage means more capacity for these consumer electronics.
I'm guessing that 16 Gb chips probably will not debut in Apple products until the end of this year or the beginning of the next. If I have my facts straight, the iPhone uses 4 Gigabit chips in its design.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dave Barnes said 11:15AM on 4-30-2007
The key phrase in the article is: "Samsung's 51 nm NAND flash chips can be produced 60% more efficiently than those produced with 60 nm process technology."
That translates to a potential 60% price drop right away.
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Fourbin said 11:23AM on 4-30-2007
Can anyone say 32GB flash Video iPod? The rumors were right...
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ThunkDifferent.com said 11:38AM on 4-30-2007
Where is the 64 GB hardrive?
http://thunkdifferent.com
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nimro said 12:04PM on 4-30-2007
I think you'll find that's GigaBYTE (GB), not GigaBIT (Gb). 1 GByte is 8 times bigger than 1 Gbit.
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tvz said 11:59AM on 4-30-2007
shouldn't it read Gigabyte instead of Gigabit ???
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D said 12:12PM on 4-30-2007
Yeaaaah... It's bandwidth that's usually expressed in gigabytes, not capacity.
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Dave Barnes said 12:18PM on 4-30-2007
Gigabit is correct.
Individual chip capacities are almost always specified in bits.
Memory modules (a collection of chips on a small circuit board) are usually specified in bytes.
Bandwidth (i.e., transmission speeds) are almost always specified in bits per second. Telecomm engineers don't really think about bytes.
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GrizzlyAdams said 12:32PM on 4-30-2007
Actually tvz, nimro, & D:
Memory devices are spec'd in bits, not bytes.
Though I do doubt the iPhone has 16/32 chips of flash memory. It is possible, but would add alot of bloat. If you ever have to shop for the raw chips, not assembled into a simm/dimm then you will have to spec them out in words x bus width, as they are sold as 1g x 16 or similar (1 gigaword w/ 16 bit bus access). A single device can be referred to in several different spec values. Bytes are not always 8bits. Words are not always 16. This is why they are usually referred to by the total number of bit cells.
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Leonard Nimrod said 12:53PM on 4-30-2007
Erica said. "If I have my facts straight, the iPhone uses 4 Gigabit chips in its design."
That is correct, people. 4Gb = .5GB. IOW, the iPhone uses 8 or 16 of these 4Gb (.5GB) chips to equal it's 4GB or 8GB capacity, respectfully.
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mrhumpy said 1:01PM on 4-30-2007
Yup Leonard's right,
These 16Gb chips are 2GB (GigaBytes) in size. So i would imagine the max we will likely see is 32GB using these chips.
I can't see that happening soon, more likely 8 & 16GB
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D said 12:55AM on 5-01-2007
Enlighting. Looks like I was wrong.
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