Samsung Readies 32GB Memory Cards
 

Samsung Readies 32GB Memory Cards

High-capacity chip could boost handheld capacity to 8000 MP3 times or
20 DVD movies.

Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service
Monday, September 12, 2005

Samsung Electronics has announced a new flash memory chip that should
pave the way for removable memory cards that can hold up to 32GB of
data.

Samsung's 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chip, which is slated to enter
commercial production during the second half of next year, will be
manufactured using a 50-nanometer production process, company
representatives said. The new chip will allow memory-card makers to
design cards with a capacity of 32GB by putting 16 of these chips into
a single card.

To put that into perspective, a 32GB memory card would be able to
store 8000 MP3 audio files or 20 DVD-quality movies in a handheld
device such as a mobile phone, according to Samsung.

However, no memory-card makers have so far committed to producing 32GB
memory cards based on the new chip.

"We just announced this chip and we don't have any specific customers
yet," said Suyeon Chae, a spokesperson for Samsung in Seoul.

Storage Capacity Jumps

At present, most removable memory cards come in capacities up to
several gigabytes. For example, Pretec Electronics, a subsidiary of
Taiwan's C-One Technology, began offering Secure Digital cards with a
4GB capacity last month. It claimed it was the first company to sell
an SD card with that much capacity.

In addition, the SD Card Association, an industry group established to
promote the card format, has said SD cards with a capacity of 8GB are
in the pipeline, but it has not said when they will be available.

Samsung hopes to see flash memory become more widely used as a storage
medium, including as a replacement for hard disk drives in some
notebook computers. To this end, it announced plans earlier this year
to introduce a flash-based replacement for hard drives. Called
solid-state disks (SSDs), these hard drive replacements will initially
be available in capacities up to 16GB, according to the company.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...091205X,00.asp


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