Advertisment

Flash Based Memory is the Future

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update


Advertisment

Advertisment

Flash memory is increasingly being used in smartphones, PCs, laptops, cameras, iPods and USB drives today. As a result, flash based memory now costs far less than traditional EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) and is emerging as the dominant memory type.

Flash memory is a solid state chip that stores your data without relying on external power source, unlike the HDDs. It can be electrically erased and reprogrammed, predominantly, in one piece, making it suitable for use with applications where large amounts of data require frequent updates. Inside the flash chip, data is stored in cells that can be cleared of its contents so it can be rewritten.

Flash memory devices use two technologies --NOR and NAND. NOR flash memory provides high-speed random access, reading and writing data in specific memory locations, and is used in smartphones to store OS and in PCs for the BIOS program that runs at start-up. NAND flash reads and writes sequentially at high speed, handling data in small blocks. This flash is used in solid state drives and USB flash drives, digital cameras, audio and video players, and TV set-top boxes. NAND flash reads faster than it writes, quickly transferring data. There are several reasons that make flash memory the preferred semiconductor. Coming year is set to witness a lot of changes in the flash memory space. Here are our predictions.

Advertisment

SSDs and HDDs will co-exist for some more time, despite SSD being better

Many people are predicting end of the road for HDDs, and some are bold enough to say that it will happen next year. Our take is that while SSDs are definitely the future, HDDs aren't going anywhere next year at least. There are several reasons for this. One is capacity. While HDDs are touching sky high capacities, like 3 TB, SSDs are still stuck at 128 GB. Second is cost. If a SSD were to to up to 3 TB, their cost would be ridiculously high. The prediction therefore is that SSDs and HDDs will co-exist next year. In fact, we've seen cases where some tablet vendors are putting HDDs in their tablets instead of flash memory to provide for higher capacity. For example Archos 5, an Android tablet will use a 500GB HDD instead of SSD.

Advertisment

More consumer electronic devices to incorporate memory cards

While many consumer devices like cameras and MP3 players cannot use USB flash drives, they can use memory cards to be read by PCs with a card reader. Memory cards have advanced from CompactFlash cards to Secure Digital Cards and are in their latest avatar in mini SD and micro SD cards, assuring higher capacities and faster transfer speeds. The mini SD provides storage for your cameras and the micro SDs stock your mobile phone data and programs. Storing the zillions of apps available in the market will not be possible without a micro SD card. In the coming year, all consumer devices such as TV, MP3 player will be compatible with memory card.

Advertisment

The latest LED from Panasonic- TX-L24E3B, has a SD card slot, via which one can play JPEG images, MP3 and AAC music and Motion JPEG/MP4 files. Some would have liked a USB port instead of SD slot, but having SD has its benefits, since SD is used as standard for many digital recording devices.

Advertisment



Mobile devices to drive flash memory

market

Advertisment

The primary catalyst for the growing flash memory market is the mobile phone. The multi-function mobile phones have increased the demand for flash memory with more capacity. With the growing popularity of digital electronics, such as DSLRs, the percentage of NAND memory is going to increase in the market, currently dominated by NOR.

Flash can be used in wide variety of applications than other memory forms. With the mobile phone market growing rapidly, the flash memory market will also explode. The built-in memory won't suffice for the increasing data and apps. Additionally, automotive navigation, digital TV, digital cameras and of course tablets are also growing quite rapidly, and their growth is going to have direct impact on the flash memory market.

Flash memory, earlier available in the capacity of upto 64GB, is going to be available in 128GB by next year. The design will also play an important role, especially the eco-friendly bamboo flash memory drives.

Most of the tablets, such as Xoom, Ipad or Playbook don't have SD or micro SD slots. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has incorporated a micro SD slot and the move to SD in tablets is just a year away with Asus Transformer Prime Tablet.

Flash Memory Will Grow in Terms of Volume and Bit Capacity

Enterprise flash drives are made for applications that need high I/O performance (IOPS), reliability, and energy efficiency. In most cases an EFD is an SSD with a higher set of specifications compared to SSDs used in notebook computers. Enterprise Flash Drive is going to last longer. Normal Flash memory can only write to the same memory. The average USB stick will wear out and break down after re-writing the same blocks after a time. The Enterprise Flash drives use Single Level Cell technology that is much faster in read/write operations, and allow much more overwrites before wearing out. It uses a tech called 'wear-levelling' that sends a subsequent writes to the same logical block address to a different area on the chip, so that all areas are used evenly.

It is expected that flash memory market will grow in terms of volume and bit capacity. The growing size and demand for digital consumer electronics will propel it to surge towards higher capacity. The rising demand for consumer electronics such as digital cameras, iPads and MP3 players is expected to drive the growth of flash memory in future. Due to its relatively simple structure and high demand for higher capacity, NAND flash memory is the most on the rise technology among electronic devices. The heavy competition among the top few manufacturers is an addition to this wave in shrinking the design and process technology node. Current projections show the technology to reach approximately 20 mn in the coming year.

Advertisment