News broke earlier this week that Apple has acquired Israel-based fabless flash memory firm Anobit for as much as $400 million according to TheMarker, adding another leading chip maker to the company’s portfolio. Anobit’s NAND flash memory is already used in Apple products including the iPhone and iPad, and the firm’s technology is said to offer several advantages over that of its rivals. As DigiTimes pointed out in a recent report, the move also means Anobit’s other clients are now fo...

As Apple and Samsung continue to battle over patents and product design, Samsung seems to be positioned to take the biggest hit. The South Korea-based electronics giant has already seen sales of its tablet blocked in multiple regions and Apple is digging deeper. Dow Jones reported back in February that Apple was expected to make roughly $7.8 billion in component purchases from Samsung in 2011, but the future of the relationship is now in jeopardy. Reports from this past June that Apple moved away from Samsung...

Apple could cut Samsung from its list of part suppliers, an arrangement that is worth as much as $5 billion for Samsung, one analyst has suggested. “They have become more competitors and less partners and so I think Apple will definitely not be looking to Samsung as its go-to partner-of-choice for NAND flash,” Brian Marshall, a Gleacher & Co. analyst told The Globe and Mail. Apple could instead choose to get its NAND flash products from other companies, such as Hynix Semiconductor, Micron, and...

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the new AppleTV, back on September 1, there was no mention of the internal storage capabilities of the device. Mr. Jobs did mention, several times actually, that the device’s focus was on streaming content, not storing it. Today, thanks to a take-apart by iFixit, we know that while content storage may not be the AppleTV’s focus, it still has the ability. In dismantling the small, black box, iFixit found a Samsung 8 GB NAND Flash storage chip hiding inside; the...

Toshiba has announced the birth of their 128 GB NAND flash memory module. The new flash storage chip “integrates sixteen 64Gbit NAND chips” onto a minuscule 17 x 22 x 1.4mm chip. Toshiba writes: “Demand continues to grow for large density chips that support high-resolution video and deliver enhanced storage, particularly in the area of embedded memories with a controller function that minimize development requirements and ease integration into system designs.” Let’s hope we se...

Samsung has pushed the limits of microSD technology, doubling the available flash memory from 16GB to 32GB. The new cards use 30-nm class 32GB NAND flash memory in a casing that is 1mm thick and a mere 0.7mm high. Currently in the hands of OEMs for sampling, Samsung will start to mass produce the 32GB card starting next month. No word on pricing but like most memory products, it will presumably start high and fall quickly. Full press release after the break. (more…)

Ever since the iPhone and iPod touch were released, it seems like a trend that its memory capacity doubles every single year: 8GB, 16GB and 32GB for the iPhone and twice that for the iPod touch. Now that Toshiba can pack 64GB of NAND flash memory onto a single chip, it’s easy for us to imagine this technology finding its way into the next generation iPhone and iPod touch. If you’ve been one of those people holding off on buying an iPhone or iPod touch because of your massive iTunes library, your d...

Taiwan-based chip manufacturer JMicron is reportedly preparing to make a splash next month at Computex 2009 when it debuts its latest breakthrough NAND flash controller. The JMF612, successor to the company’s JMF602 pictured above, represents one of several technological advancements that could combine to substantially reduce Solid State Drive (SSD) pricing in the near future. The JMF612 is designed for a new breed of SSD drives that will be smaller, faster and cheaper to manufacture. Combined with an i...

Thinking about selling your iPhone in anticipation of the upcoming 3G launch? Proceed with caution. According to iPhone Atlas, “delted” user data is still able to be recovered by future owners. It seems that user data is held in unused portions of the device’s NAND memory, even after a full wipe has been executed. A recent attempt to mine data from a fresh-out-of-the-box refurbished unit revealed a significant amount of sensitive data, including emails, contacts, and more. To be fair, the mi...