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Mobile Storage: Chips Served With Hard-Disk Salsa

Tiny hard isks and massive flash memory devices give designers a spicy array of storage choices.

Date Posted: April 28, 2005 12:00 AM
Author: William Wong

TECHNOLOGIES LYING IN WAIT
Flash memory and hard drives aren't the only high-capacity, nonvolatile storage technologies. Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) and magnetic RAM (MRAM) are two alternatives that have bounced on the horizon for many years. They offer better performance, lower cost, and higher capacity. The big problem is that they aren't here yet. They will have to build or fit into the existing infrastructure. That takes time, of course, so don't count on them in the near term.

Until then, developers will have enough choices to improve existing products and come up with new products that weren't possible without high-capacity, nonvolatile storage. Hard-disk capacities and performance are expected to rise keeping them ahead of flash memory in terms of capacity and price per gigabyte. It will be up to designers to work the tradeoffs.

NEED MORE INFORMATION?
Advanced Micro Devices
www.amd.com

Apple
www.apple.com

CE-ATA Work Group
www.ce-ata.org

Cornice
www.corniceco.com

ExpressCard
www.expresscard.org

Fujitsu
www.fujitsu.com

Hitachi
www.hitachi.com

Intel
www.intel.com

Kingston Technology
www.kingston.com

M-Systems
www.m-sys.com

MultiMedia Card Association
www.mmca.org

Nokia
www.nokia.com

PCMCIA
www.pcmcia.com

Samsung
www.samsung.com

SanDisk
www.sandisk.com

Seagate
www.seagate.com

Toshiba
www.toshiba.com

Western Digital
www.westerndigital.com

TECHNOLOGIES LYING IN WAIT
Flash memory and hard drives aren't the only high-capacity, nonvolatile storage technologies. Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) and magnetic RAM (MRAM) are two alternatives that have bounced on the horizon for many years. They offer better performance, lower cost, and higher capacity. The big problem is that they aren't here yet. They will have to build or fit into the existing infrastructure. That takes time, of course, so don't count on them in the near term.

Until then, developers will have enough choices to improve existing products and come up with new products that weren't possible without high-capacity, nonvolatile storage. Hard-disk capacities and performance are expected to rise keeping them ahead of flash memory in terms of capacity and price per gigabyte. It will be up to designers to work the tradeoffs.

NEED MORE INFORMATION?
Advanced Micro Devices
www.amd.com

Apple
www.apple.com

CE-ATA Work Group
www.ce-ata.org

Cornice
www.corniceco.com

ExpressCard
www.expresscard.org

Fujitsu
www.fujitsu.com

Hitachi
www.hitachi.com

Intel
www.intel.com

Kingston Technology
www.kingston.com

M-Systems
www.m-sys.com

MultiMedia Card Association
www.mmca.org

Nokia
www.nokia.com

PCMCIA
www.pcmcia.com

Samsung
www.samsung.com

SanDisk
www.sandisk.com

Seagate
www.seagate.com

Toshiba
www.toshiba.com

Western Digital
www.westerndigital.com

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