Flash Likely to Get More Expensive; Samsung Builds 10nm Fab

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Why does all this production manipulation feel like big scams... first it was HDDs due to the Thai floods.... now it's the Flash chips...... the big guys really aren't offering us much for the price rise..... as always.
 

rikimaru55

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[citation][nom]alyoshka[/nom]Why does all this production manipulation feel like big scams... first it was HDDs due to the Thai floods.... now it's the Flash chips...... the big guys really aren't offering us much for the price rise..... as always.[/citation]

Exactly.
 

alidan

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10nm flash, that will cut current prices of ssd (that use 20-25nm)
by 4 to 6.5 times

basically 100gb now costs 100$
when the 10nm evens out 100gb will cost between 16-25$
 

tomfreak

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I am not sure what kind of flash memory u are talking about, SSD? or USB drive. If it is USB drive, I got more than enough for daily use for now. So there is no need for me buy a new one for years.
 

saturnus

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10nm flash. That sounds very interesting indeed when coupled with the time line of production start in 2014 as that indicate 2 die shrinks from the current 20nm process in under 2 years.

What it also indicate is that Samsung might be able to make processors on 10nm by 2015, a full year before Intel.
 
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Memory manufactures keep stating that prices will go up for the past 5 months, yet prices are even or lower than before.
 

saturnus

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[citation][nom]jupiter optimus maximus[/nom]Memory manufactures keep stating that prices will go up for the past 5 months, yet prices are even or lower than before.[/citation]

Direct factory prices are up for new contracts. However, most suppliers have long contracts (meaning, deliver x amount at x price in x number of batches) and therefore aren't affected yet.
 
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terrible article, for a hardware site.. you should specify what type of flash memory. Maybe all you know is "flash" but theres much more. Get more info before you write an article like this.
 

cscott_it

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[citation][nom]alyoshka[/nom]Why does all this production manipulation feel like big scams... first it was HDDs due to the Thai floods.... now it's the Flash chips...... the big guys really aren't offering us much for the price rise..... as always.[/citation]

Probably because the history of collusion within the industry to fix prices (DRAM, Monitors, etc.)

I mean, since Flash Memory has been trending higher each year as it's included in various forms (phone flash memory, SSD, I could understand that the prices would go up in the short term, but like others have said, it's good over the long run.

As for hihi - this is flash memory on a fab/pre-assembly level, meaning that it's going to affect all products across the board even though there are differences in final product and specifics used per product. Probably why the made mention of OCZ, Samsung, and Apple.
 

rebel1280

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[citation][nom]saturnus[/nom]10nm flash. That sounds very interesting indeed when coupled with the time line of production start in 2014 as that indicate 2 die shrinks from the current 20nm process in under 2 years.What it also indicate is that Samsung might be able to make processors on 10nm by 2015, a full year before Intel.[/citation]
The article is talking about memory not CPU, i dont think its even possible to hit 10nm on a CPU. "The problem is that at a certain point you run into quantum effects that simply can't be controlled with traditional lithographic methods. Quantum tunneling for example - where an electron is supposed to be on one side of a dielectric but magically appears on the other. Tunneling is a probability function that varies with distance. When you start hitting distances that permit the effect, you're screwed and there's nothing you can do about it. I just don't happen to know at what level that starts to become a problem - or rather, an unmanageable problem" by Twilyth on Techpowerup forum.
 

freggo

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[citation][nom]alyoshka[/nom]Why does all this production manipulation feel like big scams... first it was HDDs due to the Thai floods.... now it's the Flash chips...... the big guys really aren't offering us much for the price rise..... as always.[/citation]

Why don't you go to the local library and look at a 10 year old issue of PC Magazine for example.
Look at the products and prices; than tell me again you do not get anything different for your money.

I bought a then state of the art 10GB HDD in 1998; cost me $1,000
Just picked up a USB keychain; 16GB for $9.95.

 
There is always an ebb and flow to availability and pricing as more products require a tech, and the lag time as new fabs are built to keep up with demand. Prices will go up a little, but sale prices for Cyber Monday and Black Friday will more than off-set them, and next year a lot of new fabs will be built which will better saturate the market and make larger 1-2TB drives available, while lowering the cost for 'normal' 120-512GB drives.
 

freggo

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[citation][nom]deadlockedworld[/nom]How many suicides per day will there be at a 10.8 million square foot factory? Another elevation in the Apple - Samsung competition!?[/citation]

Competition?
Apple has no manufacturing capability of their own.
 

saturnus

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[citation][nom]rebel1280[/nom]The article is talking about memory not CPU, i dont think its even possible to hit 10nm on a CPU.[/citation]

Yeah, it's 2014 for memory. If you read another article here you see that Intel released roadmap for 5nm. And it's expected that 10nm processors comes in production in late 2016/early 2017.

Quantum tunneling effects makes traditional computing techniques impossible at about 2-3nm. However, at 4-6 nanometer there's already the problem of accurate doping techniques. So the limit of traditional computing is in that area.

However, both doping technique limitations and quantum tunneling can be overcome by shifting to probabilistic computing techniques instead. That'll shift the limit to sub-nm levels.

Probibalistic computing is when you design a computer to guess the correct result instead of calculating. That allows for much much smaller and much much more efficient individual cores, and based on the level of accepted inaccuracy in the guesstimates, you just parallel several such cores combined with sophisticated algorithms to bring the inaccuracy down to 0% on the output.
 

techcurious

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[citation][nom]drwho1[/nom]I wonder how much Tom's get paid for all of this "run and buy now"... "articles".*cough*Advertisements*cough*[/citation]
hehe.. and if people listen and go out and buy more than they would have, they will create the increase in prices by suddenly hiking up demand!
 

groveborn

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CPU and memory tech are fundamentally different. That are few transistors involved in writing bits into flash, it's all just wires and storage media. CPUs and other processors have to do a whole bunch more, with significantly more things. I'm sure ol' Intel COULD produce 10nm parts, but I doubt they'd be much use. The method for creating the parts is probably going to be much the same, though.
 

rebel1280

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[citation][nom]saturnus[/nom]Yeah, it's 2014 for memory. If you read another article here you see that Intel released roadmap for 5nm. And it's expected that 10nm processors comes in production in late 2016/early 2017.Quantum tunneling effects makes traditional computing techniques impossible at about 2-3nm. However, at 4-6 nanometer there's already the problem of accurate doping techniques. So the limit of traditional computing is in that area.However, both doping technique limitations and quantum tunneling can be overcome by shifting to probabilistic computing techniques instead. That'll shift the limit to sub-nm levels.Probibalistic computing is when you design a computer to guess the correct result instead of calculating. That allows for much much smaller and much much more efficient individual cores, and based on the level of accepted inaccuracy in the guesstimates, you just parallel several such cores combined with sophisticated algorithms to bring the inaccuracy down to 0% on the output.[/citation]
Awesome, thanks for the correction and lesson +1 for you sir :)
 

Zingam

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[citation][nom]saturnus[/nom]Yeah, it's 2014 for memory. If you read another article here you see that Intel released roadmap for 5nm. And it's expected that 10nm processors comes in production in late 2016/early 2017.Quantum tunneling effects makes traditional computing techniques impossible at about 2-3nm. However, at 4-6 nanometer there's already the problem of accurate doping techniques. So the limit of traditional computing is in that area.However, both doping technique limitations and quantum tunneling can be overcome by shifting to probabilistic computing techniques instead. That'll shift the limit to sub-nm levels.Probibalistic computing is when you design a computer to guess the correct result instead of calculating. That allows for much much smaller and much much more efficient individual cores, and based on the level of accepted inaccuracy in the guesstimates, you just parallel several such cores combined with sophisticated algorithms to bring the inaccuracy down to 0% on the output.[/citation]

Amazing but how efficient would that be? Will there be any real performance increase? Any more info about that? Are there any working prototypes and how about the cost?
 
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Add to that the fact that Apple has largely secured first dibs on flash memory from all major manufacturers, and a greater than expected success of the iPhone 5 could make the current constraint situation even more serious.

http://www.prometsource.com/
 
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