Sun and Samsung team up for Flash memory

Samsung has teamed up with Sun Microsystems to develop a single-level cell Nand Flash memory device for use in solid state drives.

The companies claim that the new server-grade SLC Nand memory offers a fivefold increase in data write-and-erase cycles over standard SLC Flash memory.

The unit is designed to be used in SSDs to greatly extend the lifecycle of any high-transaction data processing server.

Samsung and Sun are pitching the technology for use in 24/7 mission-critical computing environments.

Likely applications include video streaming, high-transaction data processing, search engine operations and other high-speed server functions.

Samsung said that its server-grade SLC memory will provide a hundredfold increase over conventional hard drives in the number of data transfers (input/output per second) per watt.

This would represent substantial power savings in a market sector where rising cooling bills are being watched with a great deal of concern.

"We have been working with Sun to develop this new 8Gb server-grade SLC Flash memory which will give IT managers the best in high-density, high-endurance memory design with markedly less energy consumption than we see today," said Jim Elliott, vice president of memory marketing at Samsung Semiconductor.

"'Endurance up, power down' is going to be the mantra of IT innovators at enterprises everywhere, and server grade SLC Flash is ideally situated to deliver on that equation."

Analyst firm IDC reported recently that global demand for enterprise SSDs is expected to rise to 2.24 million units by 2012.