Apple rumored to buy flash memory company for $500 million

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  • Reply 41 of 56
    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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  • Reply 42 of 56
    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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  • Reply 43 of 56
    thomprthompr Posts: 1,521member
    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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  • Reply 44 of 56
    thomprthompr Posts: 1,521member
    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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  • Reply 45 of 56
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    Thanks for the details hmurchison.
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  • Reply 46 of 56
    $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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  • Reply 47 of 56
    Good acquisition!



    This will use a bit of the $81Billion that Apple has out OS the US.
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  • Reply 48 of 56
    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,586moderator
    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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  • Reply 49 of 56
    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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  • Reply 50 of 56
    In a "FLASH" ⚡
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  • Reply 51 of 56
    ksecksec Posts: 1,569member
    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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  • Reply 52 of 56
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member
    Nice to see Apple is still making moves. We armchair CEO would have bought the world by now and bankrupt the company.
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  • Reply 53 of 56
    shaun, ukshaun, uk Posts: 1,050member
    Really hope this is just speculation and comes to nothing. This deal would be a big mistake for Apple.
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  • Reply 54 of 56
    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.
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  • Reply 55 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ßãÇá
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  • Reply 56 of 56
    So did TLC use come to fruition in the 128GB iPhone ?

    750 writes for TLC is low so anything that improves without causing problems is a nice cash saving.
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