Flash memory continues to evolve quickly and grow more usable. The solid-state, rewritable silicon memory chips, which hold content without requiring power, are mostly known as gadgets the size of packs of gum that plug into computers' USB ports to add extra storage. But thanks to recent fabrication breakthroughs, they have become much more versatile in a relatively short period of time.
Portable flash thumb drives that can hold up to 4GB of data are now readily available, and 8GB and 16GB versions aren't far behind, industry insiders said at the recent Flash Memory Summit at the Wyndham Hotel here.
Consumers also can expect to see the first 32GB, three-quarter-inch-thick flash-based laptops in the Western and European markets within a year. Samsung previewed its first flash-driven laptop at the CeBIT conference in Hanover, Germany, in March 2006, and launched the first batch of consumer unitsâ€â€dubbed "Origami"â€â€in May in Japan and Korea.
Prices have come down slightly since spring, and they are expected to continue to decline as fabrication factories come up with more efficient ways to manufacture the silicon wafers. But flashtops will remain relatively expensive for the next few years, industry insiders said.
These new laptops undoubtedly will appeal to only a certain slice of the overall marketâ€â€those not planning to use their notebooks to store a lot of music, video, photos or other space-hogging content. People who will use flashtops will be those who simply want to utilize basic functions: to cruise the Internet, use e-mail, and write and store word processor or spreadsheet documents.
But the faster performance of flash-based laptops (at 53MB per second, NAND flash reads data about 300 percent faster and writes 150 percent faster than a conventional laptop hard drive), silent operation (no cooling fans needed), lightweight form factor and much-improved battery life are hard factors to ignore.
Intel also said it will begin adding flash chips to its standard laptop innards in 2007, mainly to speed up startup times, run BIOSes and lower power consumption by conserving hard drive operation.
