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Apple rumored to buy flash memory company for $500 million - Page 2

post #41 of 56
12/13/11 at 9:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post

I have nary a negative complaint to make.

And that's coming from a nattering nabob of negativism. (I kid, I kid.)
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post #42 of 56
12/13/11 at 10:00am
Great post hmurchison, thanks.

I also liked the post above that suggested that by owning Anobit they may be able to incorporate the NAND controller directly in the A5,6,7... chips. By owning the company Samsung can't copy too.



Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

Anobit's technology is about reliability and performance.
Where Anobit tech comes is is this.

Let's say you have a board with Qty 8 NAND chips. Todays NAND technology would thusly allow for

SLC -1 Bit Per Cell

32GB (4GB chips x 8)
64GB (8GB chips x 8)
128GB (16GB chips x 8)

MLC - Two Bits Per Cell

64GB (4GB chips x 8)
128GB( 8GB chips x 8)
256GB (16GB chips x 8)

TLC - Three Bits Per Cell

96GB (4GB chips x 8)
192GB (8GB chips x 8)
384GB (16GB chips x 8)

That's just using today's tech that's readily available. Now the problem with MLC and TLC is write endurance. You can add more bits per cell but then you're writing to the same cells over and over and eventually you hit the wall. Companies like Sandforce and Intel that make controllers for SSD deliver wear leveling features so that they're not creating hot spots and wearing out cells.

With Anobit technology Apple would likely be poised to deliver larger iPads without the decrease in write endurance and performance and that's a win/win solution.
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post #43 of 56
12/13/11 at 10:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by poke View Post

Sounds smart. I'm sure it won't be long before Apple stops selling anything with a mechanical hard drive altogether.

Do you expect the Mac Pros to have banks of 256 Meg SSDs? Or that the Mac Pro will be put out to pasture?
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post #44 of 56
12/13/11 at 10:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOFEER View Post

with icloud and drop box how much local storage do you REALLY need

iCloud doesn't stream your movies when needed. You still have to download and store them. So when going on a trip, I would prefer to side-load as many as I could from iTunes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by NOFEER View Post

how many of you would buy an ipad with 256gb??

I would.



Thompson
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post #45 of 56
12/13/11 at 10:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by KBR View Post

I don't understand how Apple would benefit from an outright purchase.

Since they already use the product the only benefit I see financially would be a possible decrease cost of NAND memory, but would it save them 500 million dollars. How much does their tech actually add to the NAND total cost. Or do they want to prevent competitors from using the tech and there by forcing competitors to increase their costs and/or use inferior products.

I understood the P.A. Semi purchase but I don't understand this purchase.

Well, you gave a pretty good reason for it right at the end of your first paragraph. Don't you understand yourself, or is it that you really don't take that thought seriously?

Thompson
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post #46 of 56
12/13/11 at 11:13am
Thanks for the details hmurchison.
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post #47 of 56
12/13/11 at 11:21am
$500m to improve reliability and performance? it would need another $500m to get it really working. so by the time it gets into market, i am not sure it would make any differences.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

Anobit's technology is about reliability and performance.
...
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post #48 of 56
12/13/11 at 11:22am
Good acquisition!

This will use a bit of the $81Billion that Apple has out OS the US.
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post #49 of 56
12/13/11 at 12:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmileyDude View Post

From my reading, this purchase isn't about Apple making flash memory chips. It's about them getting ahold of the flash memory controller. I would suspect they would integrate this into one of the Ax processors, possibly A7 or A8, as a way to differentiate themselves, reduce the cost of the device and reduce the chip count.

The whole lineup should go SSD eventually. I'd like to see the MBP move to SSD in the Ivy Bridge revision. The 2nd gen Genesis doubles the 1st gen:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09...bit_genesis_2/

They could do 200GB on the entry model and 400GB on the higher up ones or BTO. If sub-20nm NAND goes under $1/GB, it's very feasible.

The iPhone and iPad could get up to 256GB but would likely stop at 128GB:

http://www.anobit.com/default.asp?PageID=33

The problem I find with the iOS devices is that there's still no easy way to put loads of content on them. With a computer, you can plug in a USB drive or sync data with any computer so you tend to be able to collect and control a much larger amount of data. The single computer sync design and no visible filesystem is very limiting in what you can put onto iOS.

I read that wifi sync allows sync with multiple machines though so maybe that will be the big change that allows people to finally control data better and store more on iOS requiring larger capacities.
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post #50 of 56
12/13/11 at 12:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleZilla View Post

Funny how Anobit's home page says 'making flash better.' Whereas Apple is all about 'killing Flash faster,'

I hope you meant to put a smile face at the end of that.
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post #51 of 56
12/13/11 at 3:05pm
In a "FLASH" ⚡
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post #52 of 56
12/13/11 at 8:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

Anobit's technology is about reliability and performance.

NAND Flash is going to take over. We will still use HDD but I figure that most of the HDD arena will be 2TB and above sizes for mass storage needs at home (Media Collects etc)

What Anobit appears to do well is deliver more speed and reliability with today's flash technology. Apple would in essence be able to use fabs like Toshiba, Samsung or even Intel/Micron to create their NAND and mate them with the proper embedded controllers. The cool part is that Intel/Micron are going to be delivering 128gb NAND in a year fabbed at 20nm. This will double the current SSD sizes provided the yields don't tank.

Where Anobit tech comes is is this.

Let's say you have a board with Qty 8 NAND chips. Todays NAND technology would thusly allow for

SLC -1 Bit Per Cell

32GB (4GB chips x 8)
64GB (8GB chips x 8)
128GB (16GB chips x 8)

MLC - Two Bits Per Cell

64GB (4GB chips x 8)
128GB( 8GB chips x 8)
256GB (16GB chips x 8)

TLC - Three Bits Per Cell

96GB (4GB chips x 8)
192GB (8GB chips x 8)
384GB (16GB chips x 8)

That's just using today's tech that's readily available. Now the problem with MLC and TLC is write endurance. You can add more bits per cell but then you're writing to the same cells over and over and eventually you hit the wall. Companies like Sandforce and Intel that make controllers for SSD deliver wear leveling features so that they're not creating hot spots and wearing out cells.

With Anobit technology Apple would likely be poised to deliver larger iPads without the decrease in write endurance and performance and that's a win/win solution.

That is only part of the equation. With the latest Intel NAND they have manage to keep the same 25nm endurance with their 20nm NAND. And their Roadmaps points to same endurance with 14nm as well.

The company has something to do with Integrated controller and power requirement. Most of the SSD today uses the same amount of power as 2.5" HDD when loading, Their controller could properly be in the SanDisk controller range which is 100s mW while performing at today's top SSD. speed.
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post #53 of 56
12/13/11 at 10:02pm
Nice to see Apple is still making moves. We armchair CEO would have bought the world by now and bankrupt the company.
Tory Hagen
Break the Wedge!
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post #54 of 56
12/14/11 at 7:03am
Really hope this is just speculation and comes to nothing. This deal would be a big mistake for Apple.
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post #55 of 56
12/14/11 at 7:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaun, UK View Post

Really hope this is just speculation and comes to nothing. This deal would be a big mistake for Apple.

How, exactly?
If they need chips for SSDs and iOS device storage they just make them and save money by cutting out the middle man. Same practice Commodore Computer did with MOS Technologies.

... at night.

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... at night.

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post #56 of 56
12/20/11 at 3:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ßãÇá
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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