[opendtv] The Flash Memory Revolution Is Coming
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, DVD SIG <dvdlist@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 09:18:13 -0400
Much of my career has been spent turning over rocks looking for
technology trends that have the potential to fundamentally change
assumptions about the way things work. Perhaps I learned this
technique while working in Grass Valley. Local legend has it that the
largest nugget ever found in Gold Country was unearthed by a cow,
much to the pleasure of the farmer who benefited from this bovine
gold digger.
I may have been one of the first video industry journalists to
understand, and then relate to the hoards of people trying to get
their big break in television, that the Personal Computer revolution
would change the economics and the human interface to video editing
and special effects. It was a no brainer...just project out how long
it would take for Moore's Law to provide the MIPS and storage needed
to handle SDTV, and then a few years later HDTV. By 1992 I defined,
in great detail, the Personal Video Recorder, and the time frame in
which products like Tivo would become economically viable. And when
some industry pundits laughed at the notion of a camcorder based on
flash memory chips, I boldly predicted that digital still cameras
would lead the HD video revolution as the chips they rely upon grow
in resolution and storage capacity.
Last week Apple did something that I have preached about to virtually
every company that i have either worked for, or provided market
development consulting services...
"If you want to survive, you need to eat your children."
The iPod revolution was enabled by the massive investment in ever
smaller, yet higher capacity hard disk drives (HDDs). you can bet
your last dollar, however, that Steve, and his minions in Cupertino,
considered HDDs to be a temporary band-aid - enough to get the
revolution going, until memory chips became big enough and cheap
enough to replace all those motors, servos etc.
Last week Apple announced that it was discontinuing its MOST POPULAR
iPod, the HDD-based Mini. In its place Apple announced (and
immediately started shipping) the 1.5 ounce, flash memory based iPod
Nano, available in 2 and 4 GB versions, complete with color screen
and click wheel.
At about the same time Samsung announced the development of a 16 GB
flash memory chip, and the roadmap to take this technology to 32 Gb,
64 Gb, and 128 Gb over the next few years.
For those of you in the DVD world, note that this parallels the road
map for recordable optical media using blue lasers. This is not to
say that optical media and HDDs are going to be eaten alive by flash
memory - they will continue to benefit from the relentless march of
Moore's Law and all things digital. What it does mean is that old
assumptions must be cast aside.
I remember coming back from Japan in 1984 with the latest marvel in
miniaturization, a portable media player with a cassette drive and
AM/FM radio. It was about the size of today's 3.5" HDDs. Somehow the
Japanese - most notably Sony - missed the basic lessons outlined
above and have lost the portable media player market to Apple and
"the rest of them."
Electromechanical devices are on their way out, at least in
applications where power and size matter. The following article from
Korea says volumes about what's next.
"The new 50 nanometer 16 Gb NAND flash memory was introduced on
Monday, integrating 16.4 billion transistors on a chip the size of a
thumbnail. By combining 16 of these, manufacturers get 32 Gb of flash
memory that can store more than 32 hours of HD video files, 8,000
digital music files (670 hours), or 200 years of daily papers."
It's just a matter of time until flash memory exceeds our capacity to
fill it up...and then it will just get cheaper.
Regards
Craig
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200509/200509140024.html
Home> Biz/Tech
Updated Sep.14,2005 21:10 KST
The Flash Memory Revolution Is Coming
Samsung Develops 16 Gb Flash Memory Chip
Who would have thought a few years ago that flash memory chips would
one day be poised to replace hard disk drives? But after Samsung
Electronics announced it developed a 16 Gb flash memory chip, the
product is poised to revolutionize everyday life.
Already more and more people are using flash memory to store digital
content such as text, images, music and video clips. Samsung says
flash memory has brought a second "paper revolution," the era of
digital paper.
The new 50 nanometer 16 Gb NAND flash memory was introduced on
Monday, integrating 16.4 billion transistors on a chip the size of a
thumbnail. By combining 16 of these, manufacturers get 32 Gb of flash
memory that can store more than 32 hours of HD video files, 8,000
digital music files (670 hours), or 200 years of daily papers.
Samsung is planning to start mass production later next year.
Increasing numbers of products such as Apple's iPod Nano MP3 player,
HP's PDA, Microsoft's X-box, and Sony's PlayStation 2 rely on flash
memory technology. Samsung is bringing out a laptop system supported
by 16 Gb flash memory assembled from 8 Gb chips later this year.
By 2006, NAND flash will be used in cars, aircraft, ships and black
boxes, and all storage devices are tipped to be replaced by flash
memory in five to 10 years. In the car navigation industry, Mercedes
Benz and Lexus have already loaded their new models with the CMOS
image sensor, which can store the whole map of the U.S. and Canada on
2 Gb.
Flash memory is much lighter and faster than HDD, and that makes the
digital life easier. The high price was its biggest weakness, but now
that is dropping dramatically. Mobile phones, for instance, will
become more capable but slimmer and faster at the same time.
The fact that Samsung is already working on the development of 30
nanometer types with 32 Gb, 64 Gb, and 128 Gb suggests the sky is the
limit for the technology.
(englishnews@xxxxxxxxxx )
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