micron

Intel will target solid-state drives for server computers in a tie up with Hitachi that was announced Monday night.

Intel and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) said they will "jointly develop and deliver" Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Fibre Channel (FC) solid-state drives (SSDs) for servers, workstations, and storage systems.

While Hitachi is a large supplier of hard disk drives, Intel manufactures and sells consumer and enterprise-class solid-state drives (and the flash memory chips inside the drives). The enterprise-class X25-E Extreme SSDs that Intel offers now are based on Serial ATA (SATA) technology. As are its consumer-class … Read more

Micron Technology will bring out a 256GB solid-state drive early next year while it moves, along with Intel, to a new manufacturing process.

A Micron representative said Monday that the company will start volume production of a 256GB solid-state drive for consumer use in March 2009.

This follows Samsung's announcement last week that it had begun mass-producing 256GB solid-state drives.

The Micron RealSSD C200 will read data at 250MBps (megabytes per second) and write at 100MBps. It is sampling to customers now. Samsung, by comparison, is claiming sequential read rates of 220MBps, with sequential write rates of 200MBps.

The … Read more

Look on the bright side: If you work in Silicon Valley, you may not have that tough a time finding time to meet up with friends and acquaintances during the holiday season.

In another sign of the slowdown in the technology industry, employees at Hewlett-Packard Co. and Micron have been instructed to take more time off during the holidays.

In HP's case, the company is ordering employees to take an extra three days off around the annual Christmas holiday week.

"Shutting down during a period when many employees traditionally take vacation helps HP achieve operational savings and allows … Read more

Micron Technology announced Sunday that it is buying Qimonda AG's $400 million stake in Inotera Memories.

Inotera was founded as a joint venture by Qimonda (formerly the memory products division of Infineon Technologies) and Nanya Technology. Micron said the deal constitutes an expansion of its relationship with Nanya.

In the current Qimonda-Nanya partnership, Inotera operates two 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facilities producing a total of 120,000 wafers per month, Micron said.

Under the agreement, Micron will acquire access to half of the manufacturing capacity of Inotera, with the other half allocated to Nanya. Micron said it will also share … Read more

After cutting executive pay last week, Micron Technology is now paring staff as it scales back flash memory chip production.

On the heels of reporting a $344 million fourth-quarter loss last week--when Micron said it was cutting executive pay 20 percent--the Boise, Idaho-based memory chip maker said Thursday that it was restructuring its memory operations.

Micron will reduce its global workforce by approximately 15 percent during the next two years. Most of the workforce cuts will occur in Boise.

"The combination of declining customer demand and product oversupply in the marketplace has driven selling prices for NAND flash … Read more

Memory chipmakers are fighting for their life.

The memory chip market--and industry--is caught in a particularly brutal downward price spiral that is threatening the viability of even the largest players.

"Memory manufacturers who have already been losing money for several quarters are now looking at another six months to a year of absolutely ominous conditions," said Avi Cohen, managing partner at Avian Securities.

Companies are now in survival mode, according to Cohen. "It is a matter of survival and everyone needs to figure out how to stay in business over the next year or how to scavenge … Read more

Micron's earnings pain will pass directly to executives. Micron Technology attributed a $344 million loss in the fourth quarter to a cratering memory market and said it would slash executives salaries as a result.

This was Micron's seventh straight quarterly loss. The largest memory chip manufacturer in the U.S. reported a net loss for the entire 2008 fiscal year of $1.6 billion, or $2.10 per diluted share on net sales of $5.8 billion.

Executives will feel the pain. "We are implementing a 20 percent reduction in salary compensation for Micron senior executives," … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel will finally enter the high-capacity solid-state drive business with the goal of replacing hard-disk drives in both consumer and corporate markets.

This comes 20 years after Intel introduced its first flash memory--a 256KB flash chip in 1988. The world's largest chipmaker is announcing the line of solid-state drives at the Intel Developer Forum here.

The presence of Intel will intensify an already intensely competitive market. "Intel's entry into the SSD market has been expected for a while and although a bit delayed, represents the start of what we expect to be a very competitive market,&… Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--At the Flash Memory Summit taking place here this week, makers of solid-state drives cited their worries about lackluster performance on Windows Vista and, with no small irony, the dangers of hype.

Solid-state drives have become the de facto storage device for the category of small, inexpensive notebook PCs called Metbooks, and they're offered in high-profile laptops such as the MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300.

While Don Larson, product line manager at Intel NAND Products Group, said the tiny size and low power requirements of Netbooks make them an ideal product for solid-state drives (adding that … Read more