What a brilliant idea: put flash chips into memory sockets. Thats what Viking Modular is doing this with its SATADIMM product.
via Viking Modular plugs flash chips into memory sockets • The Register.
This sounds like an interesting evolution of the SSD type of storage. But, I don’t know if there is a big advantage forcing a RAM memory controller to be the bridge to a Flash Memory controller. In terms of bandwidth, the speed seems comparable to a 4x PCIe interface. I’m thinking now of how it might compare to PCIe based SSD from OCZ or Fusion-io. It seems like the advantage is still held by PCIe in terms of total bandwidth and capacity (above 500MB/sec and 2Terabytes total storage). It maybe a slightly lower cost, but the use of Single Level Cell Flash memory chips raises the cost considerably for any given size of storage, and this product from Viking uses the Single Level Cell flash memory. I think if this product ships, it will not compete very well against products like consumer level SSDs, PCIe SSDs, etc. However if they continue to develop the product and evolve it, there might be a niche where it can be performance or price competitive.
Carpet Bomberz Inc. 