Intel SSD 25nm SPOTTED

SemiAccurate :: Intel 25nm flash chips spotted

 

Yup anything about the delay in release eheh?

 

Wait a minute.

The Intel G3 is going to use a Sandforce controller?

 

i can't believe it but hey its semi accurate and usually inaccurate

 

or, and more likely, this is a new ssd that has a sandforce controller that will use intel 25nm flash chips.

 

SandForce SSDs Highlighted At IDF 2010


While walking around the IDF 2010 technology showcase we stopped by the SandForce booth to see what new SSD (Solid State Drive) technology that they were showing off. SandForce didn't disapoint us as we quickly saw several very cool SSD products sitting around the booth. The first thing that caught our attention was the SSD pictured above. This is the first public demo of an SSD that we have seen in person that uses the latest Intel 25nm MLC TSOP NAND Flash!


The drive was using a SandForce SF-1222 controller on a prototype PCB (notice the green wire soldered on this engineering sample) that used Intel 25nm MLC NAND flash with part number 29F16B08CAMEI. Both Intel and SandForce confirmed that Intel 25nm Flash is due to be released in Q4 2010 and should bring improvements in both density and performance. This is great news as in recent months Intel’s own controller and flash chips has become uncompetitive sequential write speeds. Intel confirmed that they will be releasing 600GB, 300GB and 160GB configurations of 25nm MLC Flash SSDs. The SandForce demo drive seen in the photos here was said to be 256GB in size, so the capacity of the drive will depend on the controller being used and of course the density and numbers of chips used.


Also at the booth was the OCZ RevoDrive X2, which is a PCI Express-based SSD that features four Sandforce controllers on-board for some 4-way RAID performance. This PCI Express SSD leverages a PCIe x4 interface for high data throughput that avoids the bottleneck of the traditional SATA interfaces. The RevoDrive X2 features four SandForce SSD Processors enabling up to nearly 1 Terabyte of storage capacity. SandForce said that the RevoDrive X2 is basically an existing RevoDrive that we have already reviewed with the additional expansion card added to it from day one. By adding two additional controllers and more storage space the drive performance improves. SandForce had one on display at the booth that was hitting peak sequential read speeds in the 740MB/s range with writes approaching an equally impressive 730MB/s. SandForce said that 4K random writes are rated at up to 120,000 IOPS and showed us a live demo and the test system that was being hammered on all night hit 105,000 IOPS.


They also had some enterprise and OEM solutions that shouldn't make it to the retail market and one was rather interesting that we have to show you. They have a SATADIMM, which is what looks like a memory module, but is really an SSD. SandForce informed us that if you are out of space to install drives in a server, but have open memory slots a device like their SATADIMM can be used for additional storage space. The memory module device uses power from the memory slot to power the controller and NAND Flash and then a SATA connector is plugged into your motherboard for the data transfer just like a traditional HDD or SSD.


Taking a look at the back side of the SATADIMM you can see the SATA connector that is used for SATA II 3.0Gbps data transfer.


SandForce informed us that they have 50GB, 100GB, 200GB SATADIMM modules available today with a 400GB SATADIMM becoming available next quarter. SandForce also said that they have MLC & SLC configurations available depending on the customer needs. The SATADIMM has Enterprise Class performance and speeds of 30k IOPS is easily possible. The SATADIMM also has Supercap for power fail protection and will be validated across mainstream server motherboards.

Source: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1410/1/

 

That SATADIMM looks awesome. Too bad they can't make it so its just acessed through the memory controller. No cables required!

I really want to know what that 300GB Intel will be priced at. That's the perfect size and if it's $400 or less I may end up getting that.

 

Improvements in density/performance don't mean a lot without improvements in reliability and longevity. And data recoverability.

What is more interesting is the pci-e card for desktop machines. Cut out the overhead of the sata interface and chipset and drive your 'disk' i/o directly into the cpu. Also cuts down the amount of heat/noise generated (no spinning hard drives). Great for HTPC or other machines left on 24/7 (like most of mine).

Fusion i/o has been selling such cards for 2+ years at a very, very high premium. OCZ is new to the market with their RevoDrives this past summer. Both makers currently price with cards at approx $1k per Tb (!!!).

Laptops could do much the same thing assuming a 'real' mini-pcie card/interface (many of the internal laptop mini-pcie connectors are really USB only) and a way to run a ribbon cable from the hdd bay to the interface. The conventional hdd bay gives you a place to mount the ssd.

 

What is a real shame is that Intel is turning to MLC for their new enterprise drives (eMLC, but still not SLC).

 

nothing inherently wrong with mlc other than the failure modes. You don't just lose one cell, you lose 3-16 cells (bits) depending on how the on-chip and inter-chip interleaves are set up. Quite similar to how conventional HDDs mark sectors bad. Not just bit by bit. But a whole sector (which ranges from 54 bytes to 512 bytes depending on the drive and the on board controller/firmware).

In both cases, over-provisioning (spare sectors) takes care of managing the inevitable failures.

 

microscope pics of features 25nm apart or it didn't happen