Intel的发展之与存储器 - 推出用于手持设备的超小固态盘

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可能大家都忘记了，Intel发家于存储器，如今好像只能做CPU了，做其它的都没有太大的建树。不过Intel一直有自己的Flash存储器产品线(其冤家AMD也有相应的产品)，并在其原来的xScale芯片中把Flash芯和xScale芯赤裸裸地绑在一起，当时觉得是个不错的创意，减少了封装的成本，客户的设计成本。后来xScale卖给了Marvell，怎样绑定就不清楚了。
移动手持市场是公认的下一个市场热点，Intel在这个变幻的市场中还能有多大的作为是我感兴趣的，前些日子还有人无聊地拿Intel同ARM放在一起对比，不过我是觉得移动世界给了ARM更大的空间，但ARM未必能做到Intel这样的一统江湖。未来是个开源免费的世界，只有IP的ARM未必盯得住来之各方面的挑战。

存储器的市场是巨大的，当科学家发明了用数字方式去表征模拟世界后，真个世界进入无休止的数据垃圾海洋，真正有价值的东西有多少？在人类科技最终返璞归真以前，存储器的增长好像看不到头，并越来越显著地牵动着高科技的发展，这不现在最尖端的半导体工艺都是在存储器的需求下发展的。

这篇文章的概要：

       

• Intel推出其Z-P140 PATA固态盘，业界最薄，用于手持移动设备。       
  
• 比一枚硬币还小，比一滴水还轻       
  
• 容量2GB, 4GB，快速、低功耗，皮实，非常适合用于移动Internet设备，数字娱乐以及嵌入式产品中       
  
• 固态盘(SSD)采用Flash存储器内置操作系统以及计算数据，仿真硬盘。       
  
• Z-P140是1.8寸硬盘体积的400分之一，重量的75分之一，并且比硬盘更加坚实可靠。       
  
• 预计2008年第一个季度发货       
  
• Intel已经与2007年三月推出过USB接口的固态盘 - Z-U130，还将于2008年推出串行ATA接口的固态盘，到时其固态盘家族就完整了。
  

Intel Introduces Ultra-Small Solid-State Drive for Handheld Devices

  Intel Corporation announced its latest entry into the solid-state drivemarket with the Intel Z-P140 PATA Solid-State Drive (SSD), one of thetiniest in the industry aimed at handheld mobile devices. Smaller thana penny and weighing less than a drop of water, these 2 Gigabyte and4GB ultra-small devices are fast, low-power and rugged, with the rightsize, capacity and performance for mobile Internet devices, digitalentertainment and embedded products.

SSDs use flash memory to storeoperating systems and computing data, emulating hard drives. The IntelZ-P140 PATA SSD has an industry standard parallel-ATA (PATA) interfaceand is optimized to enhance Intel-based computers, and will be anoptional part of Intel's Menlow platform for mobile Internet devicesdebuting in 2008.

The Intel Z-P140 is thesmallest SSD in its class, making it attractive to designers andmanufacturers of mobile and ultra-mobile devices. Comparatively, theIntel Z-P140 is 400 times smaller in volume than a 1.8-inch hard diskdrive (HDD), and at .6 grams is 75 times lighter. It is also a muchmore durable alternative to HDDs.

The 2GB and 4GB capacities are large enough to store mobileoperating systems, applications and data such as music or photos. It isextendable to 16GB for added storage capacity.

"Our mission is to provide world-class non-volatile SSD and cachingsolutions that are designed, optimized and validated to enhance IntelArchitecture-based computing platforms," said Pete Hazen, director ofmarketing for Intel's NAND Products Group. "Our customers are findingthe Intel Z-P140 PATA SSD to be the right size, fit and performance fortheir pocketable designs. This is Intel's latest offering as wecontinue to expand our product line of reliable, feature-rich andhigh-performing SSDs."

The Intel Z-P140 PATA SSD offers read speeds of 40Megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and write speeds of 30 MB/s. Critical tomobile applications, its active power usage is 300mW (milliwatts), andonly 1.1mW in sleep mode, which helps to extend a device's batterylife.

With a 2.5 million hours mean-time between failures (MTBF) rate,this PATA-based chip scale package delivers reliable solid-stateperformance in an extremely tiny footprint. The Intel Z-P140 iscurrently sampling with mass production scheduled in the first quarterof 2008. The 4GB version will follow the 2GB product.

The Intel Z-P140 PATA SSD adds to the current Intel Z-U130 USBSolid-State Drive family introduced last March. The Intel Z-U130 USBSolid-State Drive has a universal serial bus (USB) standard interfaceand is used as a faster storage alternative for a variety ofIntel-based computing platforms such as servers, emerging marketnotebooks and low-cost PCs as well as embedded solutions.

The company has also demonstrated technology for futurehigh-performance SSDs with a serial ATA (SATA) interface that willround out the full family of Intel SSD offerings. That technology isexpected to be announced as a product line in 2008.