I remember reading announcements of the 64GB SDXC card format coming online from Toshiba. And just today Samsung has announced it’s making a single chip 64GB flash memory module with a built-in memory controller. Apple’s iPhone design group has been big fans of the single chip large footprint flash memory from Toshiba. They bought up all of Toshiba’s supply of 32GB modules before they released the iPhone 3GS last Summer. Samsung too was providing the 32GB modules to Apple prior to the launch. Each Summer newer bigger modules are making for insanely great things that the iPhone can do. Between the new flash memory recorders from Panasonic/JVC/Canon and the iPhone what will we do with the doubling of storage every year? Surely there will be a point of diminishing return, where the chips cannot be made any thinner and stacked higher in order to make these huge single chip modules. I think back to the slow evolution and radical incrementalism in the iPod’s history going from 5GB’s of storage to start, then moving to 30GB and video! Remember that? the Video iPod @ 30GBytes was dumbfounding at the time. Eventually it would top out at 120 and now 160GBytes total on the iPod classic. At the rate of change in the flash memory market, the memory modules will double in density again by this time next year, achieving 128GBytes for a single chip modules with embedded memory controller. At that density a single SDHC sized memory card will also be able to hold that amount of storage as well. We are fast approaching the optimal size for any amount of video recording we could ever want to do and still edit when we reach the 128 Gbyte mark. At that size we’ll be able to record 1080p video upwards of 20 hours or more on today’s video cameras. Who wants to edit much less watch 20 hours of 1080p video? But for the iPhone, things are different, more apps means more fun. And at 128GB of storage you never have to delete an app, or an single song from your iTunes or a single picture or video, just keep everything. Similarly for those folks using GPS, you could keep all the maps you ever wanted to use right onboard rather than download them all the time thus providing continuous navigation capabilities like you would get with a dedicated GPS unit. I can only imagine the functionality of the iPhone increasing as a result of the increased storage 64GB Flash memory modules would provide. Things can only get better. And speaking of better, The Register just reported today some future directions.
There could be a die process shrink in the next gen flash memory products. There are also some opportunities to use slightly denser memory cells in the next gen modules. The combination of the two refinements might provide the research and design departments at Toshiba and Panasonic the ability to double the density of the SDXC and Flash memory modules to the point where we could see 128GBytes and 256GBytes in each successive revision of the technology. So don’t be surprised if you see a Flash memory module as standard equipment on every motherboard to hold the base Operating System with the option of a hard drive for backup or some kind of slower secondary storage. I would love to see that as a direction netbook or full-sized laptops might take.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/27/toshiba.32nm.flash.early/ (Toshiba) Apr 27, 2009
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/05/12/samsung.32gb.movinand.ship/ (Samsung) May 13, 2009
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/14/samsung_64gbmovinand/ (Samsung) Jan 14, 2010
Carpet Bomberz Inc. 