Apple and Samsung negotiating mega flash memory deal

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
By the end of November, Samsung is expected to sign a long-term, several hundred million dollar contract with Apple to supply flash chips for its iPod digital music players, Korean news provider edaily reported on its website on Tuesday.



The report also echoed a research note from earlier in the week by InSpectrum, which said the iPod maker is looking to add South Korea-based Hynix Semiconductor as a third supplier of low-density NAND flash memory.



Citing industry sources, the report said the contract is part of Apple's efforts to secure more flash memory chips, which are in tight supply with the holiday shopping season fast approaching.



Earlier this year, Apple dropped a $3.8 billion joint investment plan with Samsung following reports that both companies were facing investigation by the South Korean government over potential antitrust violations.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    Makes me wonder when will Apple put flashram into their Powerbook...
  • Reply 2 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kmok1

    Makes me wonder when will Apple put flashram into their Powerbook...



    Might be a while - it's not fast enough, nor has it the capacity to be useful yet.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    samgsung is alreday testing some sort of 8gb memory



    a year or two froom now no more har drives will be needed



    i thing it's cool



    interresting bloghttp://techscurry.com/?p=6
  • Reply 4 of 17
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    I don't get it. I thought Apple dropped Samsung for essentially political reasons. What's changed, and why do they need a completely new contract if they're getting back together again?
  • Reply 5 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BRussell

    I don't get it. I thought Apple dropped Samsung for essentially political reasons. What's changed, and why do they need a completely new contract if they're getting back together again?



    Maybe something not right was going on....
  • Reply 6 of 17
    Samsung is a good company. I'm glad to see two companies work together. Samsung is a leading compnay in memory industry and Apple knows it. Whatever happened in the past will play a positive role for both Apple and Samsung. Go Apple!!!
  • Reply 7 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hkbaq

    samgsung is alreday testing some sort of 8gb memory



    a year or two froom now no more har drives will be needed



    i thing it's cool



    interresting bloghttp://techscurry.com/?p=6




    There will always be a need for rotating hard drives, at least in the near term. They respond faster, and, at least so far, have MUCH larger capacities.



    In the next couple of years, yes, larger flash memory devices will be made, as I read a while back that Samsung has a 16 GB chip in development.



    But, 16 GB will hardly drive a modern desktop unit. However, imbedded computers, such as for cars or aircraft, which have environments much too rough for the typical hard drive, will probably see greater capacity for added functions driven by a larger capacity for loaded software and/or data. I see, for instance, much more accurate, reliable and faster navigation systems.



    There WILL come a day when the modern, rotating magnetic disk hard drive, will go the way of the horse and buggy. But it'll take a few years more.
  • Reply 8 of 17
  • Reply 9 of 17
    In the near future, there may be a market for this in ultra tiny laptops. In the more distant future, it is a question of if not when all computers, including desktops, will be using solid state memory.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by curiousuburb

    16Gb Flash chip



    Ok, so we were both a bit behind the curve! It's not "in development", but already being built. Could have been a prototype, tho.



    Either way, my previous post doesn't change. Even doubling the yield to 32 GB still wouldn't really satisfy the average user's storage needs, and these things take time to develop.



    Increase the storage capacity to 64 or 96 GB, and you've got the makings of a tougher laptop - but you'd need to increase the response time for the chips, too. And I'd bet that heat would begin to be a problem by then. You've got heat from the CPU already - add in a large storage device and we could be carting around a portable water cooler as well as the laptop!
  • Reply 11 of 17
    As one who lives from a laptop most of the time: I'd love flash/whatever solid state storage instead of a platter hard disk. HD's hate physical shock, extreme cold (in Scotland sometimes you get that ) don't last too long when you hit them as hard as I do (lots and lots of use for years in the same system) and the worst part for a nitpicker like me: make noise!



    Yes, HD's are quiter than they used to be (my first drive, a 50mb behemoth was a real clicker) but now I have my iPod nano I'm hooked on the silent, pristine, perfection which is no-moving-parts storage.



    I'm one of the ultra-thin ultra-portable less is more brigade Apple surely have in mind and could make a killing out of should they put a 64 bit cpu, solid state reasonably sized data store (anything over 10gb would actually do for me provided I have wi-fi) high resolution 10-12" display and something brand new from Jonathan Ive together, even if it sells for a fortune!



    The crucial things with memory for system drive are:

    - has to be fairly big

    - has to be reasonably affordable

    - has to be quite fast

    - has to have a decent lifespan

    - has to not chuck out a bunch of heat



    Fingers crossed Samsung or someone is close to fulfiling these. I'm sure Apple would be first at the door to grab as much as they could. And my 2003 PB 12" is getting old.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    pyr3pyr3 Posts: 946member
    Everyone keeps saying "There's only a 16GB chip, that's not large enough." But who says there only can be one chip in the laptop? The iPod Nano has 4 1GB chips in the 4GB version, IIRC. Wouldn't 4 16GB chips suffice with 64GB of storage? It's not like hard drives only have one platter, so that platter density = total hard drive space. (I believe that 2.5" drives only have 2 platters, and 1.8" drives have 1 platter)
  • Reply 13 of 17
    louzerlouzer Posts: 1,054member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pyr3

    Everyone keeps saying "There's only a 16GB chip, that's not large enough." But who says there only can be one chip in the laptop? The iPod Nano has 4 1GB chips in the 4GB version, IIRC. Wouldn't 4 16GB chips suffice with 64GB of storage? It's not like hard drives only have one platter, so that platter density = total hard drive space. (I believe that 2.5" drives only have 2 platters, and 1.8" drives have 1 platter)



    I was thinking the same thing. They could take four 16 GB chips, virtualize them into a single drive (like you can take several hard drives and make the system treat it as one big one - well, you can do this with windows, at least). Then you've got yourself a 60GB drive, which is certainly more than big enough for a laptop.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    The iPod uses 2 chips 16Gb chips, they are 2GB each. Samsung has shown 16Gb and 32 Gb chips, or 2GB and 4GB. They are nowhere near 128Gb, or 16GB as people seem to think here, and flash will never compete with magnetic storage in terms of $/GB, except for very small form factors. Desktops outright will never require that for mass storage and it's debatable how much laptops need it. Handheld devices, mobile phones, music players and cameras are the market for these. I think you're missing that to increase the densities they also have to push their manufacturing processes forward a generation.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    pyr3pyr3 Posts: 946member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Telomar

    The iPod uses 2 chips 16Gb chips, they are 2GB each. Samsung has shown 16Gb and 32 Gb chips, or 2GB and 4GB. They are nowhere near 128Gb, or 16GB as people seem to think here, and flash will never compete with magnetic storage in terms of $/GB, except for very small form factors. Desktops outright will never require that for mass storage and it's debatable how much laptops need it. Handheld devices, mobile phones, music players and cameras are the market for these. I think you're missing that to increase the densities they also have to push their manufacturing processes forward a generation.



    Sorry. In that picture the light reflection is over the little 'b' and I read it as a capital 'B.'
  • Reply 16 of 17
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pyr3

    Sorry. In that picture the light reflection is over the little 'b' and I read it as a capital 'B.'



    It's an easy mistake to make. The rule of thumb is that if they are referring to the bare chip itself, it will be in bits. Finished modules, like DIMMs and SD cards, will be in bytes. The reason is that you can "stack" them in parallel to make any configuration or bus width that you want.



    I think flash hard drives would be nice, but there are some pretty major cost and capacity hurdles, as well as fab capacity to consider.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    I'd love to see a hybrid set up where the OS and iApps were on the flashdrive and thus "always on" 'a la Palm Pilot, while there is also a harddrive with Photoshop and other apps on it. A controller makes the differences seem transparent.



    This would give us the perfect laptop with good sleep functionalities. I find that I spend more time waiting for the entire system to boot up just so I can find out my calendar events and email. I don't mind the wait when I start up Final Cut or other larger apps. And I don't own a cellphone or palm device for "on the go info" and the iPod, though cool, doesn't have the screen capacity for it.



    Put that system on a 10" subnotebook in the Powerbook family and you'd have the greatest traveling system on the planet and take about 50% of the Japanese market.



    I also wonder if it would make Dashboard any faster.
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