Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed the world’s first 15-nanometer (nm) process technology, which will apply to 2-bit-per-cell 128-gigabit (16 gigabytes) NAND flash memories. Mass production with the new technology will start at the end of April at Fab 5 Yokkaichi Operations, Toshiba’s NAND flash fabrication facility (fab), replacing second generation 19 nm process technology, Toshiba’s previous flagship process. The second stage of Fab 5 is currently under construction, and the new technology will also be deployed there.

Toshiba has achieved the world’s smallest class chip size with the 15nm process plus improved peripheral circuitry technology. The new chips achieve the same write speed as chips formed with second generation 19 nm process technology, but boost the data transfer rate to 533 megabits a second, 1.3 times faster, by employing a high speed interface.

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Silicon Power, the world’s leading provider of memory storage solutions, today presents the upgrade solution of its revolutionary Thunderbolt™ external solid state drive- Thunder T11 with great capacity of 240GB. In addition, Thunder T11 gets the new color variant—starlight blue to brighten up itself with more elegance and flavor. Featuring advanced Thunderbolt™ technology and exceptional product design, SP Thunder T11 has acquired great attention and support from worldwide professional designers and Apple fans since its debut last year. Thunder T11 also proved its superiority with the recognition from red dot award: Product Design 2014, which is the most influential and prestigious design award all over the world.

Along with evolving technology development and increasing demands for data storage efficiency, Silicon Power introduces the pioneering Thunderbolt™ external SSD—Thunder T11, which enhances storage solution with Thunderbolt™ SuperSpeed I/O technology and delivers astonishing transfer rates up to Read/Write 380MB/340MB/sec. With such incredibly high transfer speed that is three times that of USB 3.0 HDD, Thunder T11 is ideal for professionals who attach importance to speed performance, such as photographers, videographers, video gamers and businessmen. Moreover, Thunder T11 stands out by its stunning look with extremely tiny and featherweight design. Only weighting 65g and having half the size of ordinary storage devices, Thunder T11 is not only the lightest but also the smallest Thunderbolt™ SSD on the market. Accompanied with exquisite Aluminum enclosure, Thunder T11 creates a truly hi-tech product with high fashion design and is perfect for trendy professionals on the go.

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Micron Technology, Inc., today announced a new enterprise-class solid state drive (SSD) designed specifically for data center storage platforms. Enterprise applications are experiencing tremendous new demands for greater data throughput due to rapid growth in mobile applications, cloud services and connected devices. Micron's new M500DC SATA SSD addresses this growing need by providing the performance and data protection features of an enterprise-class drive at a great value.

"System administrators are realizing that there is a need for an SSD that delivers more enterprise-features than a client drive at a more affordable price than most enterprise drives," said Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights. "Products such as Micron's M500DC SSD offer data centers the optimal balance of enterprise class features, performance and price for demanding 24/7 enterprise workloads."

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Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the addition of 240GB and 480GB capacities to the existing SSDNow mS200 mSATA SSD line. Kingston’s SSDNow mS200 mSATA solid-state drive allows system builders and enthusiasts a cost-effective performance boost with quicker boot time and application loads while requiring less power than HDDs.

The mS200’s small-form factor is perfect for notebook, tablet and Ultrabook™ PCs, as well as a variety of embedded systems. It can also be used as a caching device with motherboards that support Intel® Smart Response Technology (SRT) to improve system performance. mS200 has read speeds up to 550MB/s and write speeds up to 520MB/s.

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Today, CDRLabs brings you a review of WD's My Cloud personal cloud storage solution. Available in 2TB, 3TB and 4TB capacities, this easy to use, single bay NAS device is equipped with a dual-core ARM processor, 256MB of DDR3 RAM, a gigabit Ethernet port and a USB 3.0 expansion port. The My Cloud provides secure file sharing and flexible backup options for both Macs and PCs and can serve as a home's digital entertainment hub to stream audio and videos. Users can also access and upload files directly to the My Cloud using WD's desktop and mobile apps as well as the WDMyCloud.com web site.

Extending its industry leadership in memory card solutions, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., (TAEC), a committed leader that collaborates with technology companies to create breakthrough designs, has introduced the world's fastest microSD memory cards. The new cards are the first in the industry to comply with the UHS-II interface standard, the ultra high speed serial bus interface defined in the SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 4.20. Available in 32GB and 64GB capacities, Toshiba's new microSD memory cards offer the fastest transfer rates available, are UHS Speed Class 3 (U3) enabled, and allow high-quality 4K video capture at constant minimum write speeds of 30MB/s. This means that 4K2K video, live broadcast and content can be recorded on high-performance cameras.

The 64GB cards offer a maximum read speed of 260MB/s and a maximum write speed of 240MB/s. The 32GB cards have a maximum read speed of 145MB/s and maximum write speed of 130MB/s, which represents an 8x write speed improvement and 2.7x read speed improvement when compared to Toshiba's current 32GB microSD UHS-I cards. These faster transfer speeds reduce the time required to download large data movie and music files to smart phones and tablets, and enable camera users to shoot high resolution digital still images in a continuous high speed shooting mode.

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CDRLabs finishes up the week with a review of Plextor's new 256GB M6M series SSD, the PX-256M6M. Designed for ultrabooks, tablets and other portable devices with limited space, the M6M provides high-performance and reliability in a space one-eighth the size of a standard 2.5-inch SSD. The drive combines Marvell's 88SS9188 "Monet Lite" controller with Toshiba's Advanced 19nm (A19) Toggle Mode MLC NAND to deliver up to 520MB/s read and 440MB/s write transfer rates. The M6M also supports Plextor's exclusive True Speed and True Protect technologies as well as the SATA Device Sleep (DEVSLP) standard which extends the battery life of a device by reducing the drive's power consumption when it is not in use.