10TB solid state drives may soon be possible

An innovative new process architecture can extend Moore's Law for flash storage – bringing significant improvements in density while lowering the cost of NAND flash.

Intel Corporation – in partnership with Micron – have announced the availability of 3D NAND, the world's highest-density flash memory. Flash is the storage technology used inside the lightest laptops, fastest data centres, and nearly every cellphone, tablet and mobile device.

3D NAND works by stacking the components in vertical layers with extraordinary precision to create devices with three times higher data capacity than competing NAND technologies. This enables more storage in a smaller space, bringing significant cost savings, low power usage and higher performance to a range of mobile consumer devices, as well as the most demanding enterprise deployments.

As data cells begin to approach the size of individual atoms, traditional "planar" NAND is nearing its practical scaling limits. This poses a major challenge for the memory industry. 3D NAND is poised to make a dramatic impact by keeping flash storage aligned with Moore's Law, the exponential trend of performance gains and cost savings, driving more widespread use of flash storage in the future.

"3D NAND technology has the potential to create fundamental market shifts," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Memory Technology and Solutions at Micron Technology. "The depth of the impact that flash has had to date – from smartphones to flash-optimised supercomputing – is really just scratching the surface of what's possible."

One of the most significant aspects of this breakthrough is in the foundational memory cell itself. Intel and Micron used a floating gate cell, a universally utilised design refined through years of high-volume planar flash manufacturing. This is the first use of a floating gate cell in 3D NAND, which was a key design choice to enable greater performance, quality and reliability.

The data cells are stacked vertically in 32 layers to achieve 256Gb multilevel cell (MLC) and 384Gb triple-level cell (TLC) dies within a standard package. This can enable gum stick-sized SSDs with 3.5TB of storage and standard 2.5-inch SSDs with greater than 10TB. Because capacity is achieved by stacking cells vertically, individual cell dimensions can be considerably larger. This is expected to increase both performance and endurance and make even the TLC designs well-suited for data centre storage.

Key product features of this 3D NAND design include:

• Large Capacities – Triple the capacity of existing technology, up to 48GB of NAND per die, enabling 750GB to fit in a single fingertip-sized package.

• Reduced Cost per GB – First-generation 3D NAND is architected to achieve better cost efficiencies than planar NAND.

• Fast – High read/write bandwidth, I/O speeds and random read performance.

• Green – New sleep modes enable low-power use by cutting power to inactive NAND die (even when other dies in the same package are active), dropping power consumption significantly in standby mode.

• Smart – Innovative new features improve latency and increase endurance over previous generations, and also make system integration easier.

The 256Gb MLC version of 3D NAND is sampling with select partners today, and the 384Gb TLC design will be sampling later this spring. The fab production line has already begun initial runs, and both devices will be in full production by the fourth quarter of this year. Both companies are also developing individual lines of SSD solutions based on 3D NAND technology and expect those products to be available within the next year.

200GB microSD card announced by SanDisk

SanDisk has announced the first 200GB capacity microSD card, a 56% increase on its previous record of 128GB just a year earlier.


SanDisk Corporation has introduced the 200GB SanDisk Ultra® microSDXC™ UHS-I card, Premium Edition – the world's highest capacity microSD card for use in mobile devices. Just one year after its record-breaking 128GB microSD card, the company has increased storage capacity by 56% within the same fingernail-sized form factor. Blazingly fast transfer speeds of 90MB/s enable consumers to move up to 1,200 photos per minute.
“Mobile devices are completely changing the game,” said Christopher Chute, Vice President, Worldwide Digital Imaging Practice, IDC. “Seven out of 10 images captured by consumers are now from smartphones and tablets. Consumers view mobile-first devices as their primary means for image capture and sharing – and by 2019, smartphones and tablets will account for nine out of 10 images captured. As the needs of mobile users continue to change, SanDisk is on the forefront of delivering solutions for these demands as is clearly illustrated through their growing portfolio of innovative products, including the new 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card.”
SanDisk achieved this capacity breakthrough by leveraging the proprietary technology developed last year for the 128GB version and creating a new design and production process that allows for more bits per die. Digital storage is a very good example of an exponential technology. On current trends, microSD cards with terabyte (1000GB) capacities are likely to be achieved within the next several years.
The 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, features a ten-year limited warranty and will be available worldwide in Q2 2015 at a suggested retail price of $399.99.

3-D haptic shapes can be seen and felt in mid-air

New research, using ultrasound, has developed a 3-D haptic shape that can be seen and felt in mid-air.






Touch feedback technology – known as haptics – has advanced rapidly in recent years. It is now used in a range of applications including entertainment, rehabilitation and even surgical training. New research by the University of Bristol, using ultrasound, has created a virtual 3-D haptic shape that can be seen and felt in mid-air.
This breakthrough, led by Dr Ben Long and colleagues at the university's Department of Computer Science, could improve the way 3-D shapes are used and function as an important new tool in certain situations. It could enable surgeons to explore a CT scan, for example, by enabling them to actually "feel" a disease, such as a tumour.
The method uses ultrasound, focussed onto hands above the device and can be felt. By focussing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be seen as floating 3-D shapes. Visually, the researchers have demonstrated the ultrasound patterns by directing the device at a thin layer of oil so that the depressions in the surface can be seen as spots when lit by a lamp.
The system generates a virtual 3-D shape that can be added to 3-D displays to create a holographic effect that can be seen and felt. The research team have also shown that users can match a picture of a 3-D shape to the shape created by the system. They have already been approached by companies interested in commercialising the technology. At this early stage of development, the level of detail in the virtual objects is limited, but using a greater number of speakers at smaller sizes could improve the resolution of projections.
“Touchable holograms, immersive virtual reality that you can feel and complex touchable controls in free space, are all possible ways of using this system,” says Dr Long. “In the future, people could feel holograms of objects that would not otherwise be touchable, such as feeling the differences between materials in a CT scan or understanding the shapes of artefacts in a museum.”

Microsoft offers a close look at HoloLens hardware

We talked quite a bit about the Microsoft HoloLens goggles yesterday. We took a bit of a look at the hardware inside the headset and liked the fact that the HoloLens needed no wires to work. HoloLens is a headset that will support Windows 10 applications running directly inside the device.

The apps will need to be optimized for HoloLens, and if they are you can run them directly on the headset just as you could on a Windows 10 PC. Microsoft has posted a video that shows a bit of how the HoloLens is made along with some of the things it will do.
The portion of the video showing the glasses laying data over items in the real world is very cool. The video looks at the audio aspects of the headset and how it fits on the head.
To say the HoloLens is packed with sensors is an understatement. The big downside that I see with the HoloLens right now is that it is big and bulky. I can’t see people wearing these things without feeling self-conscious about it. Perhaps in the future the HoloLens will get smaller.

THERE’S A BRIGHT IDEA: AUDI WORKING TO COMBINE MATRIX-BEAM HEADLAMPS WITH LASER LIGHTS

Leave it to Audi to make headlights something interesting to talk about. Not satisfied with their laser light technology, they’re hard at work incorporating that with the matrix-beam system they demonstrated working with LED lighting.

To bring you up to speed, the matrix lighting maps out a grid for the headlight beam area. Instead of shutting off or redirecting the whole beam, the LED tech can simply turn off the light in a section where the light might be blinding. In practical terms, if the car detected an oncoming vehicle, it would still brightly illuminate the dark path in front of the car and just switch off the part of the beam where another vehicle was traveling.

Getting this to work with its laser light tech isn’t a matter of just swapping out the light source. Laser light tends to be more direct and intense, so the solution Audi has been working on revolves around a system called the Intelligent Laser Light For Compact and High-Resolution Adaptive Headlights.

It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Mercifully called iLas for short, the system utilizes a rapidly moving micro-mirror that redirects the laser beam. When traveling at low speeds, light is projected in a larger area and narrowed through an aperture when traveling fast on the highway. This gives Audi drivers the best of both worlds: intense, clean beams of light that can illuminate far in front of them, coupled with the fluid dynamics of the LED-matrix system.

NASA's 10-engine electric UAV now flies as well as it hovers

NASA's ten-engine UAV, dubbed the Greased Lightning (GL-10), recently showed off a slick new trick in the skies over Hampton, Virginia. The drone, which is under development by a team at the Langley Research Center, had already passed its initial hovering tests last August; but that was the easy part. As the long and miserable development of the V-22 Osprey has shown, the real challenge is switching over from hover mode to conventional forward flight without the vehicle falling out of the sky. But on Thursday, NASA's battery-powered tilt-rotor aircraft successfully did just that.

"During the flight tests we successfully transitioned from hover to wing-borne flight like a conventional airplane then back to hover again. So far we have done this on five flights," aerospace engineer Bill Fredericks said in a statement. "We were ecstatic. Now we're working on our second goal -- to demonstrate that this concept is four times more aerodynamically efficient in cruise than a helicopter."

Should the GL-10 prove its aerodynamic ability, the Langley team hopes to spin the technology off into a number of commercial applications including small package delivery (put your hand down, Amazon) or industrial/agricultural surveillance. And as Fredericks continued, "a scaled up version--much larger than what we are testing now--would make also a great one to four person size personal air vehicle."

Warby Parker wants you to use your phone for eye exams

Warby Parker, the eyewear company that sends you frames to try on before you make a purchase, has some lofty goals for the near future. In addition to plans that'll almost double its current retail footprint, the start-up has tech in the works that will save you a trip to the optometrist for an eye exam. "We think that would increase access to eye exams," co-founder Dave Gilboa told The Wall Street Journal. "It's early in the process but we are excited about the potential." Of course, besides the convenience, it'll also provide an avenue for folks who really need their eyes looked at to get some help at home.

Both the new stores and the software project will get a boost from Warby Parker's recent $1.2 billion valuation, coming on the heels of a funding round that took in $100 million. The company started as a web business that ships a box frames for eager shoppers try on at home before having a pair made with the proper prescription. In 2013, it beganopening physical stores, now totaling 12 locations in 9 cities around the US.

Update: A previous version of this article stated that Warby Parker was working on an app for eye exams; however, the company is working on technology to make those possible with a smartphone. The most recent round of funding was $100 million, not $215 -- that's the total raised so far. The text has been updated to correct the inaccuracies.