UpdatedMicron has replaced its U.2 and AIC-format 9200 SSDs with an U.2-only 9300 line, beefing up capacities from 11TB to up to 15.36TB. The 9200 included ECO, PRO and MAX variants for capacity-optimised, read-intensive and mixed workloads, but the ECO model has been scrapped for the 9300. Micron_9300 The 2.5-inch (U.2) 9300 SSD …

Top UK pop-pickers CCS Insight have predicted that smartphone demand will decline 3 per cent this year, the latest in a flurry of gloomy forecasts. CCS revised its earlier forecast down: it reckons 1.8 billion smartphones will shift in 2019 rather than 2 billion, as it thought earlier. Marina Koytcheva, VP of forecasting, …

US chip slinger Micron has said that the end of memory oversupply issues is in sight, and demand for DRAM silicon will begin growing again later this year, especially in the cloud and data centre markets. The company shared the good news on Wednesday as it reported shrinking earnings in its second quarter of fiscal 2019, ended …

The cost of DRAM chips has seen its largest decline in nearly eight years, as global prices fell by nearly 30 per cent. This is according to DRAMeXchange, which estimated that so far this year, the price of contracts between DRAM suppliers and PC manufacturer took an even greater hit than the 25 per cent that had been forecast …

Micron has rejigged its 1100 SATA SSD with denser NAND to produce the new 1300 model. The flash this time around is 96-layer, TLC (3bits/cell) 3D NAND. The 1100 used 32-layer TLC 3D NAND. Both drives are disk drive replacements for notebook and desktop PCs. Like the 1100, the 1300 comes in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB …

MWCMicron and WD's SanDisk both dropped the veil on massive memory cards for your mobile at Barcelona's phone confab this morning: specifically, the little beggars are stuffed with a terabyte of storage. The Idaho storage firm said its c200 1TB microSDXC UHS-I card will be on the market in the "second quarter" – it's only …

An abrupt quarter-on-quarter revenue cliff drop affected all the main flash vendors, except Intel, which saw NAND revenues rise despite falling prices. DRAMeXchange highlighted the sudden revenue reversals everywhere but Intel, supplying these numbers:   Q-on-Q Bit Shipments Q3-Q4 revenue change Q4 revenues ASP Q3 market …

Micron has confirmed it will indeed buy Chipzilla’s interest in their IMFT flash foundry joint-venture based in Lehi, Utah. The intent to do this was first announced by Micron in October last year at an estimated cost of $1.5bn. It means that from the closing date of the transaction Intel will need to have its Optane 3D XPoint …

Taiwanese chip-maker UMC, under legal siege from the US Department of Justice, has reportedly pared down its DRAM project team by nearly one half, signalling victory for rival Micron. There were some 300 or so engineers working on UMC's DRAM project, but the Nikkei Asian Review reported that 140 are to be reassigned, presaging …

The three DRAM suppliers are scaling back production growth as memory demand falters with no sign of recovery. The DRAMeXchange research outfit has said annual DRAM capital expenditure (CAPEX) growth has gone negative for 2019 as Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron respond to weak seasonal demand in the first quarter and beyond. …

Chip maker Micron has slammed the brakes on production and expenses entering calendar 2019 in anticipation of falling demand. The admission came as the company reported revenues of $7.9bn for Q1 of fiscal '19 ended 29 November, up 16 per cent year-on-year but an abrupt slowdown from the 40 per cent expansion in the previous …

SSD market stats for calendar Q3 from DRAMeXchange, IDC and TrendForce and Wells Fargo have highlighted three things: Samsung remains the global undisputed sales heavyweight; the PC industry will suck up more SSDs than disk drives next year; and NVME is the enterprise SSD interface of choice. Samsung, with 36 per cent revenue …

AnalysisIt has been revealed that open source Ceph storage systems can move a little faster than you might expect. For those who need, er, references, it seems a four-node Ceph cluster can serve 2.277 million random read IOPS using Micron NVMe SSDs – high performance by any standard. Micron has devised a 31-page Reference Architecture …

China has claimed to have gathered "massive evidence" in its ongoing investigation into Korean chip giants Samsung and SK Hynix and the US's Micron for alleged violations of its antitrust laws. memory logic board China's make-your-own DRAM ambitions growing all the time READ MORE In June it was revealed the Chinese …

Micron has started shipping its 2.5-inch 5210 ION flash drive, positioning it as a 10,000rpm disk drive replacement offering much better read access performance for more or less the same price. The drive was first announced in May. The low cost (low for flash, at least) comes from its use of 64-layer 3D NAND in QLC (4bits/ …

SK Hynix has finished work on a 512 Gbit, 96-layer, 3D NAND chip with 1Tbit, and 3bits/cell (TLC) and 4bits/cell (QLC) coming later. Currently SK Hynix is shipping 72-layer 3D NAND chips. The 96-layer chip uses charge trap flash (CTF) tech, as opposed to floating gate, and its logic circuitry is placed underneath the flash …

The US Department of Justice has unveiled charges against two companies and three individuals it says have been stealing trade secrets from American memory chipmaker Micron. The DOJ claims United Microelectronics Corporation and Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit – along with individuals Stephen Chen, JT Ho, and Kenny Wang – all …

The US department of commerce has issued an edict that effectively bans American companies exporting technology to Chinese DRAM maker Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company. The order was issued on Monday, US time. The Chinese company was caught up in the legal battle between Micron and UMC. Micron went to the federal …