Samsung isn't content to leave fast NAND flash memory to traditional solid-state drives. Its Pro Class 1500 promises a big jolt to the performance of frequently pokey smartphone and tablet storage. By how much? That name is a clue -- it reaches 1,500 IOPS (inputs/outputs per second) when writing data, which along with 3,500 IOPS data reads is about four times faster than any previous embedded flash chip Samsung has tested. In the real world, that leads to as much as 140MB/s when reading data and 50MB/s for writes. The speed comes after Samsung has thrown virtually every trick in the book at its new chips, including a dense 20-nanometer manufacturing process, quick toggle DDR 2.0 memory with its own controller and a new JEDEC memory standard with 200MB/s of bandwidth to spare. Samsung hasn't named customers for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB parts that are rolling out of the factories, although we'd do well to remember that a flourishing phone business doesn't guarantee that the only major customer is Samsung itself: even in the face of legal challenges, Samsung still has at least one noteworthy client that tends to snap up much of its flash supply.

Continue reading Samsung starts mass-producing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs, Storage

Samsung starts mass-producing 4x faster mobile flash memory, kickstarts our phones and tablets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.