The Memory Guy would like to wish a happy birthday to his evil twin The SSD Guy, who started posting one year ago.
His 73 posts this year have shown great insight into the SSD business, although I find it bothersome that he has published more posts than I have!
DRAM manufacturers often refer to “The Windows Bump” – a phenomenon that is believed to occur after every release of a new version of the Windows operating system. According to this theory DRAM demand increases for a period following an introduction.
An example: in a recent article Kingston VP Scott Chen said that an increase in sales for Windows 8 might help raise DRAM demand, leading to more stable prices.
Demand is expected to pick up on the upcoming launch of Windows 8 tablets and Ultrabook PCs later in the second half of 2012.
Does the Windows Bump really exist? The Memory Guy thought Continue reading “Does the ‘Windows Bump’ Really Exist?”
NAND prices have increased since July, and that appears to have helped Samsung to increase its memory revenues in the past quarter. That comes as a welcome change!
As this post’s graphic illustrates the company has has seen downward-trending memory revenues for five of the past six quarters, but Q2 revenues increased by ten percent. Interestingly enough, the last quarter-to-quarter increase was a miniscule 0.3% one in Q2 of 2011. It looks as if growth tends to regularly occur in Samsung’s second quarter.
Last quarter’s revenue growth helps to debunk rumors that Samsung was Continue reading “Samsung Revenues Reflect NAND Price Increase”
It’s not often that a small private firm acquires a part of a larger public firm, but that’s what happened today with Atmel and Adesto. Adesto, a manufacturer of alternative memory technology, has purchased Atmel’s serial NOR flash business for an undisclosed sum.
The transaction covers the Atmel “Data Flash” and “BIOS Flash” product families and the employees supporting those products. Atmel has retained its Serial EEPROM, Crypto and Digital Temperature Sensor memory product lines and plans to continue to invest in those businesses.
This is not a small thing. Serial NOR now accounts for roughly Continue reading “Adesto Acquires Atmel’s Serial NOR Business”
At the Intel Developer Forum in mid September Kingston Technology demonstrated a prototype of an intriguing product certified by Microsoft to support the Windows To Go version of Windows 8 Enterprise. The device, called the DataTraveler Workspace (or DT Workspace for short) is more than the simple USB flash drive it resembles.
While a USB flash drive or thumb drive contains little more than a USB flash controller and some NAND flash, the DT Workspace includes a full SSD (based on a standard SandForce controller) plus DRAM. Windows compatible systems and certain other systems can boot through the USB port with full operation securely remaining Continue reading “Kingston’s ‘Windows To Go’ Thumb Drive”
