Samsung Collaborates with Sun Microsystems to Develop New Ultra-Endurance Flash Memory for SSD Products in Server Applications

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

SEOUL, KOREA – July 17, 2008 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world

leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced today that it has
collaborated with Sun Microsystems to develop a single-level-cell NAND
flash memory device for use in solid state drives that offers much higher
endurance levels than any other flash memory device on the market today.

Offering a five-fold increase in data write-and-erase cycles over standard
SLC flash memory, Samsung’s new server-grade SLC NAND memory is designed to
be used in SSDs to greatly extend the life cycle of any high-transaction
data processing server. It is expected to deliver the highest endurance
ever offered in 24/7 mission-critical computing.

The ultra-endurance server-grade memory has been developed in close
cooperation with Sun over the past several months.

Probable applications for the new ultra-endurance SLC flash include its use
in video streaming, high-transaction data processing, search engine
operations and other high-speed server functions.

Samsung said that its server-grade SLC memory will provide a 100X increase
over conventional hard drives, in the number of data transfers
(input/output per second or I/OPS) per watt, registering a substantial
power savings in a market sector where rising cooling bills are being
watched with a great deal of concern.

“We have been working with Sun to develop this new 8Gb server-grade SLC
flash memory, which will give IT managers the best in high-density,
high-endurance memory design with markedly less energy consumption than we
see today,” said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung
Semiconductor, Inc. “‘Endurance up, power down’ is going to be the mantra
of IT innovators at enterprises everywhere, and server grade SLC flash is
ideally situated to deliver on that equation,” Elliott added.

“Sun sees incredible upside to using server grade SLC NAND flash to
accelerate customers’ applications, and we plan to incorporate this
technology into our line of servers and storage,” said Michael Cornwell,
lead technologist for flash memory, Sun Microsystems. “Flash SSDs of this
quality and performance when included in our systems and Open Storage
products with Solaris ZFS will revolutionize the hardware marketplace. We
are excited to be working closely with Samsung to lead this game-changing
technology revolution.”

According to IDC, global demand for enterprise SSDs is expected to rise to
2.24 million units in 2012.