Micron Technology will introduce a 256GB SSD (solid-state drive), the RealSSD C200 early next year. Solid-state drives are very popular amongst netbook manufacturers.
The Micron RealSSD C200 will read data at 250MBps & write at 100MBps. It is sampling to customers now. Samsung, by comparison, is claiming sequential read rates of 220MBps, with sequential write rates of 200MBps. Samsung announced last week their 256GB SSD, which is ready for production now.
Micron is slightly behind schedule in delivering the 256GB product, as it was originally targeted for the 4th quarter of this year, CNET News reports.
Intel & Micron have a joint NAND flash memory venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), which manufactures the NAND chips. The two companies market the products separately. Both companies announced this week their mass production of their jointly developed 34-nanometer, 32-gigabit multilevel cell NAND flash memory device. The new Micron 256GB drive will not be based on the 34nm process, however. Drives based on this process will come out later in 2009.
The "32Gb monolithic die will give us the ability to cost-effectively produce over 300GB-capacity SSDs in standard 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch form factors," according to Intel.
Multilevel cell technology allows makers of solid-state drives to deliver lower-cost devices at higher capacities.
Micron will start volume production of a 256GB SSD drive for consumer use in March 2009. As usual no prices are mentioned.
