Flash Triple Level Cell on 25nm Lithography Production This Year

Saw an article over at StorageReview.com today on an announcement indicating we will probably see a significant increase in Flash storage density by the end of the year due to the development of triple level cell technology (TLC) on 25nm Lithography.  This increases storage density by moving from 32nm to the smaller 25nm, and also increases the number of bits that can be stored from 2 to 3.  It is not clear whether TLC will be offered in SSD’s, as the TLC technology will decrease the write endurance of the flash.  It may only be suited for applications that are rarely written to but read from often, such as MP3 players.  Micron, Intel’s partner in this endeavor, has a short video on the new 25nm TLC flash.

On a side note I noticed there has been alot of dancing around of SSD prices on Newegg.  The WD SiliconEdge Blue 128GB drive was $200, then the price jumped up quite high and there was no other SSD’s priced anywhere close to that low.  Later a 128GB Plextor drive showed up at around $190 but then disappeared from that price point and the WD SiliconEdge Blue showed up again at around $200.

I also found something that is almost a joke to me.  A $30.00 Mail-In Rebate on a $9,000 drive!  Wow, what a deal 🙂  I guess if you were corrupt and had purchasing power at the company you worked for, then you might favor the hardware with a mail-in rebate and then pocket the rebate 😦