Flash-based storage continues to move from being an expensive niche technology targeted at a few workloads to a more mainstream technology. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the broader availability of products, a growing level of familiarity with the benefits of solid state technologies, and declining prices are all adding to the momentum behind flash-based storage.

To gain end-user insights into how flash-based storage is being adopted, IDC conducted a survey of more than 1,000 storage administrators across the globe as part of its biannual Storage User Demand Study (SUDS). This study provides essential details on current and future deployments of storage systems as well as more forward-looking opinions of end users about emerging technologies or market developments.

Enmotus Inc. announced that it is demonstrating its FuzeDrive hybrid storage software solutions at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, CA. The product and technology demos highlight the versatility of Enmotus' hybridization technology, which enables high performance, cost effective hybrid storage utilizing storage media such as Flash/HDD and Flash/Flash as well as next generation Storage Class Memory such as NVDIMM.

FuzeDrive targets applications that require high performance such as databases and analytics as well as content delivery solutions. The demonstration can be seen at the Flash Memory Summit, booth 219, taking place in the Santa Clara Convention Center on Aug. 5-7.

ATP, the leading manufacturer of embedded Flash and ruggedized SSD and DRAM modules, introduces its latest technology, advancedMLC, also known as "aMLC". Developed by ATP, aMLC is an advanced firmware technology uniquely implemented onto ATP's NAND Flash products to vastly improve the endurance and performance of these storage devices while using mainstream MLC NAND to provide the best cost effective solution for any read/write intensive applications.

ATP will showcase this technology and related products at the Flash Memory Summit 2014 from August 5 to 7 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, booth# 516.

Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor & Storage Products Company today announced that it will start the sales of SDHC memory cards with embedded wireless LAN communications for third-party solution providers.

The new product, THNSW008GAA-B(QB6) has the same hardware composition as "FlashAir", the SDHC memory card with embedded wireless LAN communications, currently available in the consumer market. Since the card itself has embedded wireless LAN and web server functions, its insertion into an SDHC memory card slot adds wireless functions to various devices.

The shipment performances of Smartphones, Tablets, and Notebooks were relatively weak in the first quarter due to seasonality. As a result of the entire NAND Flash market's oversupply in 1Q 2014, the branded suppliers' Q1 revenues saw a 6.6% drop compared to the previous quarter, and slid to approximately US$ 7,244 million, according to Sean Yang, Assistant Vice President at DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce.

Looking at the branded supplier revenue ranking, Samsung managed to retain its lead in the market with approximately US$ 2,175 million in sales, but saw its market share dip slightly to 30.0%; Toshiba came in second with a revenue total of US$ 1,548 million and an improved market share of 21.4%; SanDisk ended up in third place with US$ 1,367 million in revenue, while Micron came in fourth with US$ 1,050 million; Affected by its capacity allocations, SK Hynix's revenues slid to approximately US$ 594 million, resulting in market share of 8.2%.

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in storage solutions, and Avago Technologies Limited, a leading semiconductor device supplier to the enterprise storage, wired, wireless and industrial end markets, today announced that they have entered into a definitive asset purchase agreement under which Seagate will acquire the assets of LSI's Accelerated Solutions Division ("ASD") and Flash Components Division ("FCD") from Avago for $450 million in cash.

The acquisition strengthens Seagate's strategy to deliver a full suite of storage solutions, providing Seagate with established Enterprise PCIe flash and SSD controller capabilities to deliver solutions for the growing flash storage market. LSI's ASD business, which is the second largest player in the PCIe flash space, offers a highly differentiated enterprise-grade PCIe flash solution focused on the high-growth cloud and hyperscale markets. LSI's FCD business, led by its SandForce SF2000 and SF3700 controller products, is driving a multi-product roadmap to address volume markets.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it will demolish the No. 2 semiconductor fabrication facility (Fab 2) at Yokkaichi Operations, the company's NAND Flash memory plant in Mie prefecture, Japan, and replace it with a new fab on the same site. Toshiba also entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding with SanDisk Corporation to invest jointly in the new facility. The primary purpose of the new wafer fab is to secure space for converting existing Toshiba and SanDisk 2D NAND capacity to 3D NAND beginning in 2016.

Demolition work on the current Fab 2 will start in May with construction beginning in September 2014, with a target completion date of Summer 2015. The clean room within the new fab will be built in phases to align the clean room investment with the timing of conversion of 2D NAND capacity to 3D NAND. Construction of the initial cleanroom will be complete in time for 2016 output. Decisions on capacity conversion ramp and equipment investment, the start of production, and production levels in the new fab will reflect market trends.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed the world's first 15-nanometer (nm) process technology, which will apply to 2-bit-per-cell 128-gigabit (16 gigabytes) NAND flash memories. Mass production with the new technology will start at the end of April at Fab 5 Yokkaichi Operations, Toshiba's NAND flash fabrication facility (fab), replacing second generation 19 nm process technology, Toshiba's previous flagship process. The second stage of Fab 5 is currently under construction, and the new technology will also be deployed there.

Toshiba has achieved the world's smallest class chip size with the 15nm process plus improved peripheral circuitry technology. The new chips achieve the same write speed as chips formed with second generation 19 nm process technology, but boost the data transfer rate to 533 megabits a second, 1.3 times faster, by employing a high speed interface.

Spansion Inc., a global leader in embedded systems solutions, today expanded the company's high-speed Serial NOR portfolio with a high-performance family of 1.8V flash devices, the Spansion FS-S Serial Flash family.

With read speeds up to 133 MHz in Single/Dual/Quad I/O mode and 80 MHz in double data rate (DDR) mode, the FS-S family delivers up to 80 MBytes/second (MB/s) of read throughput and is 50 percent faster than competing solutions. In addition, industry leading programming performance of up to 1.08 MB/s - twice the programming speed of competing solutions - accelerates manufacturing throughput and lowers programming costs dramatically. Spansion's FS-S family also offers the fastest erase time in the industry of up to 0.5 MB/s.

SK Hynix Inc. announced that it has started full-scale mass production of 16 nm 64 Gb (Gigabit) MLC (Multi Level Cell) NAND Flash, which uses the industry's thinnest process technology.

SK Hynix has been mass producing its 1st version of the world's first 16 nm NAND Flash since June and recently has started to mass produce the 2nd version which is more cost competitive due to its smaller chip size. In consequence, the Company geared up for strengthening its competitiveness in NAND Flash.

Silicon Power, the world's leading provider of memory storage solutions launches the brand new designed stainless steel USB flash drive - Touch T03. Along with the trendy Northern Europe style and exquisite metal casing, Touch T03 is designed to be the perfect combination of technology, fashion and extraordinary living style. Featuring the eye-catching look and delicate faceted-body, Touch T03 is more than an ordinary storage device but a great fashion accessory for users to show their charm and taste.

SP Touch T03 stands out with its stunning appearance which delivers great sense of luxury and elegance. Furthermore, Touch T03 is extremely tiny and featherweight that allows an easy and convenient way for carrying and storage. With the application of COB (Chip on Board) technology, Touch T03 ensures great durability and offers high protection for the drive body, promising complete resistance to water, dust and vibration. Moreover, Touch T03 shines with the sleek stainless steel casing with stylish groove design at the end of the body, which can be easily attached to the key rings, purses or bags.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the availability of a replay-protected monotonic counter (RPMC) feature for their SPI NOR Flash memory devices, which are validated for future Intel Ultrabook platforms. The cost-effective 64Mb density is the sweet-spot solution currently available for immediate platform-enablement activities.

The RPMC feature in Micron's SPI NOR device is the first in a family of cryptographic primitives that will significantly enhance preboot security in cost-sensitive embedded, mobile, and personal computing architectures. The RPMC-enabled device facilitates critical nonvolatile data storage, while making systems resistant to rollback and replay attacks. It enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to further strengthen code/data storage in the boot memory and deliver more secure systems to customers.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of Universal Flash Storage (UFS) version 2.0. Developed for mobile applications and computing systems requiring high performance and low power consumption, the new UFS v2.0 standard offers increased link bandwidth for performance improvement, a security features extension as well as additional power saving features over the prior version. JESD220B Universal Flash Storage v2.0 may be downloaded free of charge from the JEDEC website: www.jedec.org/standards-documents/results/jesd220b

UFS is a high performance interface designed for use in computing and mobile systems requiring low power consumption such as smart phones and tablets. Its high speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant improvements in throughput and system performance.

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory products, today announced the Lexar Professional Workflow Reader Solution, the only solution that transfers video and images from up to four memory cards at once using just one USB port. The solution includes a four-bay reader hub compatible with popular card formats, such as XQD, UDMA 7 CompactFlash (CF), Secure Digital Extended Capacity (SDXC) Ultra High Speed-I (UHS-I), and Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) UHS-I.

The Lexar Professional Workflow Reader Solution allows users to mix and match readers in the hub. The readers are sold separately so users can configure the hub into an ideal solution that meets their individual workflow needs:

PNY Technologies Inc, announces the introduction of StorEDGE: a revolutionary new Flash Memory Expansion Module designed exclusively for use in MacBook computers to quickly and easily increase available storage capacity while keeping you mobile. Engineered as a semi-permanent storage solution, StorEdge simply plugs directly into your MacBook to radically upgrade your flash memory without compromising your notebook's sleek design. StorEdge hosts a small form factor and unobtrusive patent pending design, allowing it to sit nearly flush to your MacBook. Available in 64GB and 128GB capacities, StorEdge allows users to store even more images, videos, music, and files - without compromising system speed or performance.

Japanese cooling expert Scythe expands its wide variety of PC accessories by a brand new card reader. Scythe's new 5-in-1 card reader supports all common media standards and comes with the extremely fast USB 3.0 interface. Thanks to the USB 3.0 port in the front of Scythe Kama Reader USB 3.0, users are able to utilize the full speed of externally connected devices such as USB sticks and Hard Drives.

The biggest advantage of the USB 3.0 interface is the high speed it allows. Compared to the USB 2.0 standard, storage media can surpass the limitations and finally unleash the real potential thanks to USB 3.0. Most USB 2.0 card reader were limiting the read and write speed to approximately 30 Megabyte per second, although the theoretical transfer-rates are often labeled with 60 Megabyte per second. USB 3,0 on the other hand allows theoretical transfer-rates above 600 MB/s, which pushes the limit higher, allowing really fast transfer of files.

Transcend Information, a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, today introduced the HSD740 half-slim SATA III 6Gb/s solid state drive (SSD). Featuring the latest SATA specification, Transcend's HSD740 SATA III half-slim SSD delivers peak performance in industrial grade standards, yet offers significantly smaller dimensions and superior long-term reliability than 2.5" form factor hard disk drives.

Transcend's HSD740 half-slim SATA SSDs are comprised of high-quality toggle-mode MLC NAND Flash chips, providing excellent solid-state performance in a lightweight compact package that measures just 54mm x 39mm x 4mm. In addition to their convenient compact size, the HSD740 SSD modules feature a high-bandwidth SATA III 6Gb/s interface that helps deliver fast transfer speeds reaching 510MB/s read and 185MB/s write. As a result, Transcend's new half-slim SATA SSDs offer significantly improved performance benefits, greater design flexibility, and cost savings to manufacturers of mobile computing applications such as Ultrabooks, Industrial PCs and notebooks, gaming systems, and handheld devices.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced that it is sampling next-generation, 16-nanometer (nm) process technology, enabling the industry's smallest 128-gigabit (Gb) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash memory devices. The 16 nm node is not only the leading Flash process, but it is also the most advanced processing node for any sampling semiconductor device. It solidifies Micron's leadership position in storage technology development and delivers on the company's vision to provide the most advanced semiconductor solutions.

Micron's 128 Gb MLC NAND Flash memory devices are targeted at applications like consumer SSDs, removable storage (USB drives and Flash cards), tablets, ultrathin devices, mobile handsets and data center cloud storage. The new 128 Gb NAND Flash memory provides the greatest number of bits per square millimeter and lowest cost of any MLC device in existence. In fact, the new technology could create nearly 6 TB of storage on a single wafer.

BIWIN, a world-leading expert in the development and manufacture of flash and advanced NAND flash memory, has launched a new business-grade SSD that is perfect for the digital signage market, the half slim H6201. There are many different industrial applications for digital signage and the field is growing. To operate in public and outdoor environments, it is critical that the components are reliable, scalable, efficient and of low maintenance cost.

Flash memory is suitable for industrial grade products for a variety of reasons. By comparing with traditional HDD, SSDs are far more reliable because they have no moving parts. This makes them an ideal solution for deployments where heat, cold, dust, humidity and even shock and vibration are common. BIWIN SATA II Half-slim SSD H6201's MTBF of 2,000,000 hours is more than doubled comparing with mechanical hard drives, leading to lower maintenance costs. H6201 is extremely fast with the ability to handle high IO data throughput such as multiple data streams suitable for graphics and video in a very small package. SSDs are much more energy efficient. For example, H6201's maximum power consumption is 0.97W, which eliminates the dependency on system fans for cooling. The result is a quieter design with lower annual energy costs.

LSI Corporation today announced it has expanded the LSI Nytro product portfolio of PCIe flash adapters with a new, high-capacity 3.2TB Nytro WarpDrive accelerator card, and expanded capacity, connectivity and software capabilities across the Nytro MegaRAID product family. The new offerings extend the industry's broadest portfolio of PCIe flash adapter products, allowing customers to choose the optimal solution to uniquely address their challenges across a wide range of enterprise applications and datacenter workloads.

LSI Nytro products are being deployed to deliver the ultra-low latency and high-bandwidth performance required for Big Data applications, hyperscale web and cloud datacenters, financial services, and virtual desktop and server workloads. The products also help customers shrink their overall storage footprint and power requirements, leading to increased datacenter efficiency and lower IT costs.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its Super Hybrid drives for enterprise and desktop consumers.
The Super Hybrid is a group of SSDs and an HDD combined together that is connected to a system through a PCIe slot. This new product supports sequential read and write speeds of up to 800 MB/s with a cache of 192 GB.

Intel Corporation today announced the Intel Solid-State Drive DC S3500 Series, its latest solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers and cloud computing. Designed for read-intensive applications such as Web hosting, cloud computing and data center virtualization, the Intel DC S3500 Series is an ideal replacement for traditional hard disk drives (HDD), allowing data centers to save significant costs by moving toward an all-SSD storage model.

Intel SSDs, including the Intel SSD DC S3500 Series, enable transformational improvements in cloud infrastructure, fostering new and enriching Web experiences. End customers experience quicker Web page loads and improved response times as a result of dramatically improved data access times and reduced latency. IT managers and cloud developers are rewarded with improved total cost of ownership as a result of reduced power consumption, more consistent performance and smaller space requirements. More than half of U.S. businesses now employ cloud computing applications, and IDC predicts that worldwide spending on cloud services will reach $44.2 billion this year. Data centers powering these cloud applications need to quickly, efficiently and reliably scale to handle the tremendous growth of connected users and data traffic.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the latest addition to its SSDNow family, the KC300 solid-state drive. KC300 enables business, mobile and power users to be more productive as the drive maximizes power efficiencies in notebook PCs. KC300 provides advanced power management via an LSI SandForce second-generation SF-2281 processor, allowing users to do more from a single charge.

KC300 is the next-generation business drive, replacing the Kingston V+200 and KC100 SSDs. The drive features enterprise-grade SMART attributes, allowing IT departments to monitor wear range data, SSD life left, write amplification and total bytes written. KC300 comes equipped with Data Integrity Protection featuring DuraWrite technology to extend the life of the SSD by effectively and efficiently reducing the number of Flash writes via an intelligent compression engine without sacrificing data integrity. RAISE reduces the number of uncorrectable errors in the drive, over and above standard error code correction.

Silicon Power /SP, the world's leading provider of memory storage solutions presents you with a newly designed USB flash drive - Jewel J10. Combined with high technology and sleek design, the Jewel J10 enables you to show your extraordinary taste anytime and anywhere. This Northern Europe inspired design is not just another ordinary memory storage device but also a luxurious accessory which allows you to express yourself.

SP Jewel J10 will catch your eye with its stainless steel design and remarkable appearance, making itself a perfect combination of style and practicability. With the weight of 3.1g, J10 will amaze you with its mobility and convenience. Accompanied with advanced application of USB3.0 COB (Chip on Board), Jewel J10 is able to not only protect the golden finger from scratches but also prevent itself from damages caused by water, dust and vibration. Furthermore, the creative groove design ensures that your USB is only a keychain away.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that the company has developed second generation 19 nanometer process technology that it will apply to mass production of 2-bit-per-cell 64 gigabit NAND memory chips later this month.

Toshiba has used the new generation technology to develop the world's smallest 2-bit per-cell 64 gigabit NAND memory chips, with an area of only 94 square millimeters. Using a unique high speed writing method, the next generation chips can achieve a write speed of up to 25 megabytes a second - the world's fastest class* in 2-bit-per-cell chips.