setting the stage for rolling out advanced memory technology to meet the growing demand for faster, more reliable performance across a wide span of applications, samsung on tuesday said it began mass producing the industry’s first 4-bit sata solid-state drive (ssd) for consumers.
the south korean tech giant said it would launch several 4-bit consumer ssds later this year with 1tb (terabyte), 2tb, and 4tb capacities in the widely used 2.5-inch form factor.
the new 4-bit quad-level cell (qlc) ssd is expected to bring a new level of efficiency to consumer ssds.
“samsung’s new 4-bit sata ssd will herald a massive move to terabyte-ssds for consumers,” said jaesoo han, executive vice president of memory sales and marketing at samsung electronics.
“as we expand our line-up across consumer segments and to the enterprise, 4-bit terabyte-ssd products will rapidly spread throughout the entire market,” han added.
typically, as data stored within a memory cell increases from three bits to four, the chip capacity per unit area would rise and the electrical charge (used to determine information from a sensor) would decrease by as much as 50 per cent, making it considerably more difficult to maintain a device’s desired performance and speed.
however, samsung’s 4-bit 4tb qlc sata ssd maintains its performance levels at the same level as a 3-bit ssd, by using a 3-bit ssd controller and turbowrite technology, according to the company.
with its new 1tb 4-bit v-nand chip, samsung said it will be able to efficiently produce a 128gb memory card for smartphones that will lead the charge toward higher capacities for high-performance memory storage.
