34-nm NAND Flash Solid-State Drives Lowers Cost By Up To 60%

Intel is moving to a 34-nm manufacturing process for its NAND flash-based solid state drive (SSD) products, which are an alternative to a computer's hard drive. The move to 34 nm will help lower prices of the SSDs up to 60% for PC and laptop makers and consumers who buy them due in part to the reduced die size. The multi-level cell (MLC) X25-M mainstream SATA SSD is available in 80-Gbyte and 160-Gbyte versions. It’s drop-in compatible with the current 50-nm version and will continue to be drop-in compatible to replace existing hard disk drives (HDDs). Compared to its previous 50-nm version, the X25-M offers a 25% reduction in latency and faster random write input/output operations per second (IOPS). It delivers up to 6,600 4 kbyte-write IOPS and up to 35,000 read IOPS. New channel prices for the 80-Gbyte X25-M are $225 for quantities up to 1000 units. The 160-Gbyte version is $440 for quantities up to 1000 units. The X25-M SSD comes in a standard 2.5-inch form factor. The X18-M, in a 1.8-inch form factor, will begin shipping on 34-nm technology later in this quarter. A firmware update will support the Windows 7 Trim command, along with an end user tool, to allow users to optimize the performance of their SSD on Windows XP and Vista operating systems. INTEL CORP., Santa Clara, CA. (408) 765-8080.