Toshiba recently announced they launched a 64GB embedded NAND flash memory module on a single chip. Mass production is expected in the first quarter of 2010.

Since the iPhone can only hold a single NAND flash chip, the largest configuration has been 32GB. This new chip would allow for 64GB iPhones and 128GB iPod touches.

NAND Flash Module

Regular HDs nowadays ally mechanical work and electromagnetic fields to store non-volatile data. They’re just a bunch of disks piled together, containing thin magnetic surfaces which interact with electro-magnetic needle-heads. Now if you program or have considerable knowledge of computer programs, then you know that accessing data located in the hard drive is about the costiest thing you can do (both time and energy-wise). That stands true because the needle head needs to move up to a specific location and wait for a specific disk to rotate so that you can read exactly what you want.

Well, it just so happens that there are other ways of storing data. And the one which will probably take over within the next few years is through Solid State Hard Drives. If you’ve never heard of them, all you need to know is that they’re different than our hard drive disks because they don’t store bits using magnetic fields on disks, but semiconductors built upon integrated circuitry (thus eliminating the need for all the mechanical action upon I/O requests). The idea isn’t new; in fact, we’ve been using solid state devices for a few years now (pendrives). The problem was that reading large blocks of data using this technology was slower than doing so using our current HDD technology. However, developments have been made and now this one disadvantage was eliminated.

Consequently, we’re left with only advantages: SSHDs are silent, dont heat up as much (even though they can work at temperatures regular HDs can’t), faster (no waiting for rotation and needle positioning… they even boot faster) and don’t break as easily (because of the lack of tiny mobile mechanic parts).

As expected, SSHDs are still way more expensive than magnetic disk-based ones, but the prices have been going downhill. Just recently, Sony released the Vaio FW series, which includes a 256 SSHD, and pureSilicon, an actual 1TB SSHD (Nitro N1).

Whether you can afford them or not isn’t really important. The point is, in the near future, there’s a great chance these drives will be as cheap as our current ones, and that’s something we can look forward to.

In the CPU board there is a 2 Gb NAND Flash chip organized in :

1 Device = (2K+64)Bytes x 64Pages x 2048 Blocks = 2112Mbits

This chip is connected to the i.MX31 Application Processor through the Nand Flash Controller Interface with an 8 bit data bus. The in kernel driver “drivers/mtd/nand/mxc_nand.c” can easily support it registering the nand device in the machine code with the follow platform data:

static struct mxc_nand_platform_data imx31pdk_nand_flash_pdata = {
       .width          = 1, /* 1 Byte data bus */
       .hw_ecc         = 1, /* No suppress hardware ECC */
};

The mxc_nand.c driver is enabled by default with a $ make mx3_defconfig

What can be enabled is the MTD Partitioning support with support for RedBoot partition table parsing where the Location of RedBoot partition table is the number of the Flash page where it is stored the RedBoot “FIS directory” that for me start at 0×80000, so it is the fourth page (4).

The resulting patch:

Subject: [PATCH 2/2] MXC: imx31pdk: Add support for on board NAND Flash.

Signed-off-by: Alberto Panizzo <alberto.panizzo@gmail.com>
---
arch/arm/mach-mx3/mx31pdk.c |   10 ++++++++++
1 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm/mach-mx3/mx31pdk.c b/arch/arm/mach-mx3/mx31pdk.c
index 0f7a2f0..ca1fe5d 100644
--- a/arch/arm/mach-mx3/mx31pdk.c
+++ b/arch/arm/mach-mx3/mx31pdk.c
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
#include <mach/board-mx31pdk.h>
#include <mach/imx-uart.h>
#include <mach/iomux-mx3.h>
+#include <mach/mxc_nand.h>
#include "devices.h"

/*!
@@ -53,6 +54,14 @@ static int mx31pdk_pins[] = {
IOMUX_MODE(MX31_PIN_GPIO1_1, IOMUX_CONFIG_GPIO),
};

+/*
+ * NAND Flash
+ */
+static struct mxc_nand_platform_data imx31pdk_nand_flash_pdata = {
+    .width        = 1,
+    .hw_ecc        = 1,
+};
+
static struct imxuart_platform_data uart_pdata = {
.flags = IMXUART_HAVE_RTSCTS,
};
@@ -241,6 +250,7 @@ static void __init mxc_board_init(void)
"mx31pdk");

mxc_register_device(&mxc_uart_device0, &uart_pdata);
+    mxc_register_device(&mxc_nand_device, &imx31pdk_nand_flash_pdata);

if (!mx31pdk_init_expio())
platform_device_register(&smsc911x_device);
--
1.6.3.3

This is a REPOST from Denali Software — great stuff!

NAND Flash manufacturing cost reductions of 60% per year sustained over nearly a decade have driven many technology changes, developments, compromises, and innovations. Prices have fallen even faster over the past five years, but the precipitous price decline could easily slow due to technical forces and in all likelihood, they will. Further, NAND Flash specifications are changing and will continue to change in predictable and unpredictable ways due to these forces. These changes are taking place throughout the industry, not with just one manufacturer’s NAND Flash devices. These changes will create new capabilities for NAND users, will impose extra performance burdens, and may ultimately limit the flexibility of NAND Flash in future device generations compared to what is available today.This paper describes several of these trends in a series of warnings and enumerates the steps the semiconductor industry is taking to smooth product transition for NAND Flash users. The paper also highlights developments that may create problems for NAND Flash users in the immediate future. NAND Flash trends discussed in this paper include: Page-size trends and their impact on NAND devices and controllers Changes to the spare area on NAND Flash devices Changing page architectures and ways to use the new architectures Increasing bit error rates and the associated rise in error correction code (ECC) complexity NAND Flash manufacturers employ a broad variety of technology roadmaps, semiconductor implementation methodologies, and cost/performance optimization-and-tradeoff strategies to develop and manufacture NAND Flash devices. Diverse applications for NAND Flash memories drive similarly diverse performance specifications and requirements. “One Technology Roadmap Does Not Fit All” is an important guiding principle here. Consequently, products from some NAND Flash vendors may take somewhat different approaches to those described in this paper even though the vendors are responding to the same technical and market pressures considered below. NAND-Flash controller designers may find the warnings and comments in this paper useful as they analyze important trends in NAND Flash management. In particular, advanced NAND Flash devices need extensive software management and error-correcting methodologies to create fully-functional memory subsystems that provide error-free data storage and they’ll need even more management and better ECC methodologies in the near future. Author: Robert Pierce, Director of NAND Flash Products

You can download the whitepaper and learn more at the Denali Software website here:  —–>  CLICK HERE  <—–

It can sometimes be easy to forget that Apple’s (s aapl) primary purpose as a company is to make money, not to continually wow the industry and the public with fresh designs and technical innovation, which is all actually just a means to the end of profitability. Occasionally, though, we are reminded of this fact by things like a new report in The Korea Times about Apple’s use of bully tactics with flash memory makers.

According to the newspaper, complaints are mounting among NAND flash producers that Apple is using its position as one of the biggest buyers on the block to artificially drive down prices with ethically questionable business practices. And suppliers can’t do anything about it, since that would mean risking a very lucrative arrangement.

Apple’s apparent plan is shrewd from a business perspective, but ethically questionable, though not, apparently, illegal or in violation of any industry regulations. A senior industry official, who wished to remain anonymous, described the process as follows:

Apple has asked Korean semiconductor makers to produce a certain amount of chips for its digital products, only to actually purchase a smaller volume eventually. The company doesn’t make immediate purchases, but waits until chip prices to fall to the level the company has internally targeted.

Samsung and Hynix are the major Korean players in the NAND flash game. Both refused to officially comment regarding the supposed bully tactics, as did Apple’s Korean office. An unidentified industry source claims that the practice is common knowledge among all involved, though.

No one believes the practices are tenable in the long term, since they erode good-faith relationships with key suppliers, who might conceivably refuse to play along if Apple continues to press too hard for too long. Rather, industry watchers believe the tactics to be a short term strategy aimed at temporarily reducing the costs of high capacity NAND flash chips. The lowered price would allow them to build iPhones with much higher capacities quickly and cheaply, which some see as a good strategy for staying ahead of competition by Android and others.

Apple could also be preparing for a time when it isn’t in a position to command the prices from suppliers it currently does. For a long time, it was one of the few companies that actually built significant storage into its cellphone handset, but many other companies are now following suit. Apple’s share will dwindle, percentage-wise, even if its user base continues to grow worldwide. This could be an anticipatory attempt to lay hands on as much hardware as possible, as cheaply as possible, before the industry becomes more competitive and demand far outpaces supply.

Recorded 11/20/09 at SC09, this Panel discussion entitled “Flash Technology in HPC: Let the Revolution Begin” was moderated by Bob Murphy, Sun Microsystems. Download for iPod

Abstract: With an exponential growth spurt of peak GFLOPs available to HPC system designers and users imminent, the CPU performance I/O gap will reach increasingly gaping proportions. To bridge this gap, Flash is suddenly being deployed in HPC as a revolutionary technology that delivers faster time to solution for HPC applications at significantly lower costs and lower power consumption than traditional disk based approaches. This panel, consisting of experts representing all points of the Flash technology spectrum, will examine how Flash can be deployed and the effect it will have on HPC workloads.

* Bob Murpy slides: “Flash Technology in HPC: Let the Revolution Begin“

* Paresh Pattani slides: “Intel SSD Performance on HPC Applications“

* David Flynn slides: “Fusion-io Solid State in HPC“

* Larry Mcintosh and Dale Layfield slides: “Sun’s Flash Solutions for
optimizing MSC.Software’s Simulation Products“
For more information, check out this Sun Blueprint: Sun Business Ready HPC for MD Nastran.

* Jan Silverman slides: “Spansion EcoRAM NAM Network Attached Memory“

Repost from Brian Dipert’s article (EDN); You can reach Senior Technical Editor Brian Dipert at 1-916-760-0159, bdipert@edn.com, and www.bdipert.com.

Flash-memory-based solid-state drives have recently stirred up the staid storage industry, and their initial success stories foretell a potentially stellar future. Consider, for example, how rapidly they’ve taken over the formerly robust market for 1.8-in. hard-disk drives. Also consider their significant influence on smaller-form-factor hard-disk drives’ lackluster initial unveilings. A notable percentage of netbook, tablet, and other alternative mobile computers, especially those running Linux operating-system variants, contain solid-state drives instead of hard-disk drives. Thin and light conventional notebook PCs running Windows and OS X are also well along the conversion path.

For the entire article:  CLICK HERE

AD BAD  PJ’s……………………

साँप ने पिया बकरी का खून …
वाह ! वाह !
..
साँप ने पिया बकरी का खून …
गुड Afternoon! Good Afternoon! Good Afternoon!!
वाह ! वाह !

तेरे प्यार में पागल हो गया पीटर .. .
वाह! वाह!
..
तेरे प्यार में पागल हो गया पीटर …
अब हीरो होंडा Splendor, 80 km प्रति लीटर .. !!
वाह ! वाह !

PJ

Bahaar आने से पहले फिजा आ गयी .. .
.वाह! वाह!
..
Bahaar आने से पहले फिजा आ गयी …
फूल को खिलने से पहले बकरी खा गयी .. !!
वाह ! वाह !

आत्मा छोड़ गयी शरीर पुराना
वाह! वाह!
..
आत्मा छोड़ गयी शरीर पुराना …
दीदे तेरा देवर दीवाना .. !
वाह ! वाह !

Yashomati Maiyya Se Bole Nandlala …
वाह! वाह!
..
Yashomati Maiyya से Bole Nandlala …
“माँ, Tata Sky Laga Daala To Life Jhingalala ..!!”
वाह ! वाह !

होटों Pe “हाँ” है …
दिल में “ना” हैं ….
. वाह! वाह!
..
होटों पे “हाँ” है …
दिल में “ना” हैं …
Shashi Kapoor Kehta Hai: “Mere Paas Maa Hai …”

Imagine you are in Africa. You have been tied hanging on a tree

with a Rope anchored on the ground, a candle is slowly burning the rope, and
the lion is waiting for you to drop and be his lunch.

Your survival hinges on the rope staying intact, there is no one around to
help you.

The only possible way is to somehow convince the lion to BLOW the candle
out. How do you do that?………………

and here s d answer….

PJ

Murgi ke Ande mein Haathi

Tell Doggy

I just got off the phone with LARRY SCHUSTER of FORTASA  — he’s ramping up rapidly and he told me that he is focused on custom, industrial, NAND-based solutions for OEMs.  Larry needs no introduction but for those of you who are not aware, he was a consultant to Fusion-io and prior he was a VP at STEC and at Memtech. This guys KNOWS FLASH.

See:  www.fortasa.com

Fortasa Memory Systems is a leading provider of Solid State Storage Solutions uniquely focused to meet the high-performance, high reliability needs of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, Fortasa offers the widest product portfolio of storage solutions supporting multiple bus interfaces and form factors.

Boolean Algebra

• Boolean Aljabar (diambil dari nama penemunya George Boole) aljabar logika digital yang dipaki pada semua komputer
• Boolean Aljabar representasi simbolik
• Pada jaman Victorian (jaman kapan tuh?), matematikawan mulai untuk menerapkan prinsip formal ke Logika Aristotelian, yang membawa kita menuju logika simbolik tadi.
• Teknisnya, “Aljabar Boolean” itu adalah kumpulan sistem logika, tapi bisa juga cuma 1 sistem, tergantung kebutuhan.
• George Boole (1815-1864)
• (gak sempet nyatet (GSN))

Boolean Algebra (2)

• (Males Nyatet (MN))
• (MN)
• (MN)
• (MN)
• All computer circuits solve problems by performing Boolean transformations on binary (0-1) variables. (koq gak MN, rid? Nggak ah, di kasih tanda Veri Important Statement sih)

Boolean Algebra in the Computer

• Pada komputer logika angka 1 dan 0 berkorespondensi terhadap Voltase:
  • “Positive Logic” menggunakan + voltase (misal 5 volt) untuk angka 1 dan mati (0 volt) untuk angka 0.
  • Kadang, “Negative Logic” (1 = 0V, 0 = +V) digunakan.
• Ada 3 Kelas logika komputer/digital:
  • Combinational Logic — Outputnya berdasarkan hanya pada input, pernyataan logika internal, dan mungkin jam atau timing mekanisme (dipelajari kapan-kapan)
  • (MN)
  • (MN)
• Ada 3 dasar Fungsi Boolean: AND, OR, dan NOT

Fungsi Boolean: Logika Negasi

• NOT adalah fungsi paling sederhana dari Fungsi Boolean
• NOT didefinisikan: Output f dari NOT, jika diberi input a, adalah kebalikan dari a, a.k.a f=a-

Karena hanya ada 1 & o, maka NOT dari 1 adalah 0, begitu sebaliknya.

NOT

Tabel Kebenaran

Masih pada inget kan Tabel Kebenaran? Temennya Power Ranger! Pahlawan kebenaran! (haha, lucu ya?). Maksudku Tabel Kebenaran yang diajarin waktu kita masih kelas 1 SMA. Dibawah ini contoh tabel kebenaran.

Tabel Kebenaran (Misteri)

*1 = benar, 0 = salah, Tabel ini masih Misteri karena belum diketahui fungsinya (mari kita cari tahu!)

Menurut kalian tabel diatas fungsinya gimana? Bingung? Baca terus aja dulu sampai bawah.

Logika AND

• AND harus mempunyai 2 input, a dan b misailnya.
• AND didefinisikan sebagai: a AND b = 1, jika dan hanya jika (if and only if (iff)) a = 1 dan b = 1.
• AND dilambangkan sebagai tanda perkalian

Tabelnya:

Tabel Kebenaran AND

Penulisan/Penggambarannya:

AND

*Apakah AND fungsi dari Tabel Misteri? bukan. . .

Ilustrasi dari AND pada senter:

Ilustrasi AND

Lampu akan nyala kalau f = 1

Logika OR

• OR didefinisikan: a OR b = 1 jika salah satu a atau b atau keduanya a dan b = 1
• OR dilambangkan sebagai lambang penjumlahan

Tabelnya:

Tabel Kebenaran OR

Penulisannya:

OR

*Apakah OR fungsi dari Tabel Misteri? bukan. . .

Ilustrasi dari OR pada senter:

Ilustrasi OR

Lampu akan nyala kalau f = 1

Masih ada lagi…

Logika NAND dan NOR

• NAND itu NOT AND

NAND

• NOR itu NOT OR

NOR

Tabel kebenaran NAND:

Tabel Kebenaran NAND

*Apakah NAND fungsi dari Tabel Misteri? bukan. . .

Tabel kebenarannya NOR:

Tabel Kebenaran NOR

*Apakah NOR fungsi dari Tabel Misteri? bukan. . .

Fungsi Boolean yang lebih Kompleks: “Kombinasi Logika”

• Remember:
  • Hanya ada 2 bolean variabel: 1 atau 0
  • Fungsi Boolean yang output f nya hanya bergantung pada inputnya disebut Kombinasi Logika (Combinational Logic)
  • Gak peduli seberapa kompleksnya, Fungsi Boolean dapat selalu didefinisikan menggunakan tabel kebenaran, seperti materi sebelumnya.

Dari awal tadi, sampe sini, bisa dilihat di file pdf ini (klik kalo mu donlod), halaman 39 – 47. Untuk yang selanjutnya bisa dilihat di sini, dari hal pertama sampai akhir

SOP dan POS

• Fungsi AND yang kemudian diikuti oleh fungsi OR disebut Sum of Produts/SOP (Penjumlahan dari hasil perkalian)

SOP

• Fungsi OR yang diikuti AND disebut Product of Sums/POS (Perkalian dari hasil penjumlahan)

POS

Menggunakan Tabel Kebenaran untuk mencari Fungsi Boolean

. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .

(MN BGT, GPT sih!)

*Jujur, aku mulai nggak begitu ngerti pas udah sampe sini, , haduh gimana donk? Ada yang bisa bantu? Ya udahlah, aku lanjut aja deh, sebisa ku.

Bentuk SOP Boolean

Bayangkan kita punya output yang spesifik dari fungsi f untuk 8 kemungkinan kombinasi dari input x, y, dan z.

Contoh Tabel SOP

*itu f nya ngarang, cuma misalnya aja f nya tuh segitu.

Pertama kita cari persamaan untuk yang f = 1 yang pertama. f = x- . y . z. Iya khan? kita buktikan: x = 0, berarti x- = 1, y = 1, dan z = 1, jadi. . . f = x- . y . z = 1 . 1 . 1 = 1. Nah berarti untuk f = 1 yang kedua kita dapatkan f = x . y- . z

1. f = x- . y . z
2. f = x . y- . z

Bentuk POS Boolean

Contoh Tabel POS

Untuk POS, pertama kita cari persamaan untuk yang f = 0 yang pertama pada tabel. f = x + y- + z. Iya khan? kita buktikan: x = 0, y = 1 berarti y- = 0, dan z = 0, jadi. . . f = x + y- + z = 0 + 0 + 0 = 0. Nah berarti untuk f = 0 yang kedua kita dapatkan f = x- + y- + z

1. f = x + y- + z
2. f = x- + y- + z

Kenapa pada SOP kita mencari f = 1, sedangkan POS f = 0?

Jawabannya adalah pada SOP (yang memakai fungsi AND dulu) Angka uniknya adalah 1, coba lihat di tabel kebenaran AND, 1-nya cuma ada satu sedangkan 0 nya 3. Begitu juga sebaliknya bagi POS (yang memakai fungsi oR), Coba lihat Tabel Kebenaran Fungsi OR.

SOP Vs POS

Sekarang perhatikan tabel diatas baik-baik, agar penulisan/penggambaran rangkaiannya mudah kamu pilih yang mana?

a. POS: f = (x+y+z) · (x+y+z-) · (x+y-+z) · (x-+y+z) · (x-+y-+z) · (x-+y-+z-)
b. SOP: f = x-yz + xy-z

Jelaslah kita bakal milih yang b! Ya kan?

Latihan

Lihat Tabel di bawah ini gambarlah Sirkuitnya!

*Jelas dong SOP!

Selesai deh. . . Ngerti kan dengan penjelasanku?

Teorema Boolean: Komutatif

• a + b = b + a

Komputatif

• a . b = b . a

Komputatif

Teorema Bolean: Distributif

• a . (b + c) = (a . b) + (a . c)

Distributif

• a + (b . c) = (a + b) . (a . c) *Untuk yang ini agak beda dengan aturan Matematika. Tapi memang hal seperti ini bisa dilakukan dalam fungsi Boolean

Teorema Boolean penting yang lain

dan yang terakhir

• x– = x

De Morgan’s Law

• (x + y)- = x- + y-
  atau
  x + y = (x- + y-)-

• (x . y)- = x- . y-
  atau
  x . y = (x . y)-

Menyederhanakan Fungsi Boolean

Misal:

f = abc + abc-
maka
f = ab (c + c-)
*Ingat x + x- = 1
maka
f = ab

Menyederhanakan persamaan yang lebih kompleks

Misal:

f = (((abc + ab + bc) . a + b) . c) + abc)

%*&^%^*^^&%&*%^& (Nah loe! Bingung!!). Kalau seperti ini sebaiknya kita gunakan tabel

*Pada tabel menggunakan SOP karena f = 1 nya lebih sedikit dibanding f = 0

Sehingga

f = a-bc + abc
f = bc (a- + a)
f = bc
*ta-da!*

Hufh!! Buanyak banget!! Tjapek!! Pelajaran hari ini cukup sekian dan terima kasih (terima kasihnya khusu bagi yang ngoment, yang nggak ya nggak. He3). Have a Nice day!

Para salvar tu wii de cualquier brik, ya sea semibrick o fullbrick, necesitas tener un respaldo del NAND de tu consola. Esto se puede hacer de una manera muy fácil, la cual explico de la manera más sencilla en este post.

1. Descarga el siguiente archivo: BannerBomb+Hackmii02

2. Metes el contenido del .rar en la raíz de tu tarjeta SD. (la raíz es lo primero que se abre al abrir la SD)

3. Metes la tarjeta SD en el Wii y vas a: opciones de wii –> gestión de datos–>Canales y una vez allí le das a la pestaña de tarjeta SD.

4. Al hacer esto, se ejecutará el bannerbomb de manera automática y aparecerá esto.

4. Le damos “Sí” y Cuando se abra Hackmii veremos una primera pantalla informándonos de que componentes podemos instalar o no. En esta pantalla no podemos hacer nada mas que dar click en Continue.

5. Ahora vamos a la opción instalar bootmii.

6. Le damos en instalar como Boot2.

NOTA: Es probable que tras instalar BootMii no puedas moverte con el Wiimote. De todas formas puedes moverte con un control de GC o simplemente apagar el Wii. Esto no provocará ningún tipo de problema ya que habrá terminado de hacer la instalación y no provocará daños en la consola.

Una vez instalado, cada que iniciemos el Wii veremos esta pantalla:

Este menú SOLO SE PUEDE UTILIZAR CON CONTROL DE GAMECUBE.

Le damos en el icono de los engranes y se abrirá una ventana comoesta:

Le damos en el ícono con el dibujo de la SD y la flecha VERDE y empezará el respaldo del nuestra NAND.

El proceso es un poco tardado pero vale  mucho la pena.

Al terminar el proceso tendremos un archivo “nand.bin” en la raíz de nuestra SD. Con este archivo podemos sacar de cualquier brick (semi o full) nuestra consola.

NOTA

Para que no se ejecute el Bootmii cada que prendemos la consola solo borra la carpeta de la SD y cópiala en tu PC y NUNCA LA BORRES. En caso de que le suceda un brick a tu wii solo vuélvela a poner en tu SD y se ejecutará el Bootmii para que puedas arreglar tu wii.

[ Do NOT advertise on my Weblog! I am freaked out at the frequency of spam this space is attracting. And most of them are about making money, promoting their sites, etc etc. WTF. ]

We had an amazingly good chemistry lab today. Estimation of chloride ions in the given water sample. Took us less than 15 minutes to perform this titration as the silver nitrate standard solution was already given to us and we could directly start the analysis. Our lab hours is for 2 hours. We had 45 minutes + 30 minutes [of the lunch break] free time. Went out during that time, had pizza, spoke stuff and came back. Math was good too. I really pity the teacher who struggles to explain things to us and 70% of the class doesn’t even care. Mechanics is just too good. Nobody cares. Everybody minds their own work [messaging- though cell phones are banned, flirting- ahem, sleeping, talking, talking...].

I am really amazed at the fact that so many people on twitter are helping me with my assignments. Reema had clarified a few of my doubts 2 weeks back. Then Anvesh solved a problem that I’d put up on twitpic. Vivek gave me ideas about solving them. Ranjith explained to me almost everything that I needed to know about converting the logic gates to all NAND and NOR. Can’t be more thankful to these guys.

Never rains, but it pours, eh? As if Apple (s aapl) doesn’t have enough on its plate with the FCC, the latest patent infringement accusations are in, this time courtesy of BTG International.

BTG claims some of Samsung’s flash chips violate patents it owns on multilevel NAND Flash memory, according to Macworld. While BTG isn’t directly accusing Apple of the infringements, this is a potential headache for the company since so many of its devices employ Samsung’s chips for internal storage.

The MacBook Air, first-generation iPhone 8GB, third-generation iPod shuffle 4GB, and second-generation iPod touch 16GB all use Samsung’s NAND memory. It is not yet known whether Apple would be implicated in a settlement/compensation agreement should the complaint be upheld.

BTG is a “licensing company” that holds the title to many patents. Its parent company, also called BTG International, is “a pharmaceutical company based in London,” reports Macworld. I won’t say this could sound like an example of a “non-practicing entity” if you won’t.

Other brands named in the complaint that use Samsung’s chips include: Dell (s dell), Sony (s sne) Vaio, Lenovo, PNY and Transcend. BTG seems to know the first rule of crafting a lawsuit: Don’t stop naming names until your list of offending companies reads like a Who’s Who of the computing industry.

Objective Analysis believe SSDs will never reach prices of HDDs

In his presentation at the Flash Memory Summit today, Objective Analysis principal Jim Handy was quite optimistic on the future of the NAND flash memory market; for the near term.

Flash memory market business to remain viable until 2011

Handy pointed to current product shortages and price stability that will probably last until 2010-2011 due to growing demand combined with production and capital investments cutbacks; which is music to the ears for the 5 Flash memory makers left (Hynix, Micron, Samsung, Sandisk, Toshiba) in the market which are still recovering from their deep losses in 2008.

Looking at SSDs, Handy believes this market is ripe for consolidation; which will go from the 171+ Flash-based drive makers of today to just a handful. “Remember that there were 282 companies that used to make disk drives before the market consolidates to about 5 today,” recalls DISK/TREND founder Jim Porter.

Handy also expects SSDs to stay weak in the PC market due to higher costs compare to hard-disk drives and the upcoming launch of Braidwood, the codename for Intel’s update of its Turbo Memory technology, a flash-based caching technology that should improve disk access performance which is scheduled to be featured on mainstream motherboards in 2010.

To add insult to injury, Handy doesn’t see a price crossover between SSDs and HDDs… actually this may never happen.

Here’s a video excerpt of Handy’s presentation:

Con la nueva implementación de memoria SSD reemplazando el disco duro, se siente que pronto estaremos despidiéndonos del disco duro. Es más, hasta la nueva conexión SATA parece estar en duda por ser la causa del embotellamiento de datos en las computadoras personales y servidores.

Por años, hemos usado los discos duros que han evolucionado hasta los 7200 RPM y ahora con una conexión SATA más veloz (despidiéndonos del IDE ó ATA) lo cual nos da ahora una velocidad de hasta 6 Gbit por segundo (en el SATA III). Sin embargo, el SATA debe pasar por un ‘puente’ a travéz del USB para llegar a los procesos o dispositivos. También, el disco nos hace esperar un poco más mientras el brazo busca la información; son partes móviles del disco duro que no tenemos en otras piezas más veloces como el RAM o alguna memoria gráfica. No olvidemos además, que son estas partes móviles las que hacen que la vida del disco duro sea muy limitada. Mi memora RAM durará mucho más que el disco duro.

El SSD viene con la idea de implementar memoria similar al RAM en vez del disco duro. En vez de tener un disco duro que hay que esperar que gire para accesar los datos, ¿por qué no poner allí memoria RAM? Es eso lo que ha estado haciendo la compañía PQI al ser los primeros en darle una conexión SATA a su memoria, dándonos otra opción que no sea el mismo disco duro de siempre. La compañía PQI también ha sido la primera en incrementar el tamaño de almacenamiento de su SSD ahora disponible en 64GB. Dándome una vuelta por amazon.com veo que puedo comprar un SSD sata 2.5 (para reemplazar el disco de mi laptop) por unos $140.00.

ioDrive 80GB

La compañía fusionio avanza con pasos más agigantados buscando una conexión más veloz que el SATA. El almacenamiento que ellos ofrecen es de tipo SSD también pero rompe con el paradigma de los discos duros al ser conectado por el puerto PCI-e. Esto les da una notable superioridad en velocidad y velocidad sostenida. Pueden ver las pruebas aquí.

Qué bueno que siempre vamos evolucionando en la tecnología de las computadoras. Son cada vez más capaces y veloces. Solo espero que podamos también evitar tener que cambiar de máquina demasiado seguido y que no se pierda la compatibilidad a las piezas y a los programas anteriores.

Steve

Toshiba has mastered the NAND flash memory technology for sure. 2 days back it announced the world’s first 64GB SDXC Memory Card1 with the world’s fastest data transfer rate. While announcing the super-fast monster, 2 new memory cards with 32GB & 16GB memory was also showcased. The first sample shipments are expected in the following timeframe – SDXC Memory Cards for OEM manufacturers will start this November, and of the new SDHC Memory Cards in December.

While the SDXC and SDHC memory cards can boast as the ‘world’s first memory cards compliant with the SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 3.00, UHS104′ – What this means to the user is an super-fast read and write speed to NAND flash based memory cards. In other words, a maximum write speed of 35MB per second, and a read speed of 60MB per second.

Image credit: www.mydigitallife.info

This is a great news for media companies and enthusiasts alike, as it supports their ever increasing demand for a higher memory and a great data transfer rate. Kudos to Toshiba for raising the bar in NAND memory segment.

Outline of New SD Memory Cards

1. SDXC card

2. SDHC cards

Note: Product names above are for the Japanese market.

Key Features

(1)SDXC Memory Card realizes the 64GB capacity, the largest capacity yet available in the market.

(2)Supports UHS104, a new ultra high speed SD interface, and the highest standard in the new SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 3.00, which provides 104MB per sec. bus speed in the SD interface. It realizes a maximum write speed of 35MB per second and a read speed of 60MB per second.

(3)UHS 104 provides the conventional SD interfaces, 3.3V DS (25MHz)/ HS (50MHz), and new SDHC Memory Cards with UHS104 are interoperable with existing SDHC host devices.

(4)SDXC Memory Cards are interoperable only with an SDXC host that implements the exFAT file system. It cannot interface with SD or SDHC hosts.

(5)Integrates highly secure CPRM copy protection technology.

Source: Toshiba Corp.

Source: iSuppli Corp.

Thanks in large part to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and the growing ranks of iPhone imitators, worldwide sales of NAND-type flash memory are expected to rise nearly six-fold from 2008 to 2013, according to a report by iSuppli Corp. issued Wednesday.

Global revenue from sales of NAND flash for mobile phones could hit $932.5 million in 2013, according to iSuppli, up from $166.5 million in 2008 — a compound annual growth rate of 41.1%.

“NAND flash makers can thank Apple Inc. for starting this trend, with its iPhone models injecting new life into the memory market,” writes Michael Yang, senior analyst for mobile and emerging memories at iSuppli. “However, with the introduction of the a new generation of ‘iPhone killers,’ multiple smartphone makers now are helping to drive NAND demand.”

Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones in its last fiscal quarter and is planning to introduce a version the phone in China. “This,” says Yang, “will open up the market for the iPhone to a new potential audience of 1.3 billion people.”

Yang also credits Apple with raising the bar for how much memory manufacturers are expected to pack into their smartphones.

“The more NAND in a smart phone, the more useful it becomes, able to store more songs and video clips, to hold more map data and download more programs from an applications store,” Yang said. He points out that the entry level iPhones in 2007 had 4 GB of NAND. Today, the entry level iPhone 3GS have four times that capacity, and the 32 GB model has increased it eightfold.

The smartphones he calls the “iPhone killers” — the Palm (PALM) Pre, the BlackBerry (RIMM) Storm and the GI running Google’s  (GOOG) Android OS — all come with 8 GB of NAND. Some come with more; the Nokia (NOK) N7, for example, packs 32 GB.

He predicts that the average mobile phone in four years will have 5.8 GB of NAND flash built in, up from less than 1 GB in 2008.

NAND flash is an especially dense from of non-volatile memory. It was introduced by Toshiba more than 20 years ago and is widely used today in memory cards and USB drives, as well as mobile phones.

Apple COO Tim Cook announced on July 21 that Apple had made a $500 million prepayment to Toshiba as part of a long-term agreement to supply Cupertino with flash memory. “We view flash as a very key component for us because we use it in so many of our products,” he told analysts during Apple’s Q3 earnings call, “and also we’re a reasonable percentage of users of flash on a worldwide basis.”

Pewnie zastanawiacie się o kogo mi chodzi w tytule. Nie jest to Acer ani Asus to już na wstępie mogę Wam zagwarantować. Zanim przejdę do nazwy naszego tajemniczego gościa pozwólcie mi najpierw powiedzieć parę ciepłych słów o nim. Otóż nasz gość, charakteryzuje się posiadaniem dotykowego ekranu o przekątnej 8,9 cala i oferującą rozdzielczość 1024 x 600. Oprócz tego posiada on procesor TI OMAP3530, 256 MB pamięci RAM, 256 MB pamięci NAND (w sumie wszystkiego 512 MB), 8giga na karcie SD. Ale najlepszą cecha naszego dzisiejszego gościa jest jego żywotność. Potrafi on działać nieprzerwanie przez 10 godzin na jednej baterii. Już wiecie o kogo mi chodzi? Tak, dzisiejszym gościem jest netbook a właściwie Touch Book od firmy Always Innovating. Powitajcie go wszyscy serdecznie.