For those who know, the Samsung branded NAND flash memory is considered the Tier 1 quality that everyone talks about.  It’s the best stuff out there…highest quality, best in performance, yet always a touch above others [Micron, Hynix, etc] in price.

Well that might change because Samsung is entering the retail market with their solid state flash of Secure Digital, Compact Flash and microSD media.

Samsung will release sizes from 4GB to 16GB capacity before the end of 2009.  These cards will be in the ‘Plus’ memory card class and compliant with the Secure Digital class 6 performance standards.  Cards boust a speed range of 17Mbps to 45Mbps.

Samsung is looking to strengthen their digital memory storage line with a possible purchase of SanDisk.  SanDisk is currently the #1 supplier of solid state flash memory, world wide [such as Secure Digital, miniSD, microSD and many more].  Samsung is the top producer of flash memory chips.

Through an acquisition, Samsung would strengthen it’s channel for supplying it’s flash chip to retail and channel sales of end-user flash memory.

With weak chip prices and fluctuating buyer habits, a move like this could strengthen Samsung’s position and would put Samsung at over 50% of world wide control of production, distribution and sales of NAND flash memory.

Avi Cohen of Avian Securities said it was an “unlikely prospect” due to SanDisk being unwilling to sell at the bottom of the cycle, and Samsung becoming a direct competitor to many of its customers and regulatory concerns. “Regulators in the US, Korea and Europe among others will likely have issue with one player controlling north of 50 per cent of NAND [Flash memory] supply,” he said.

Another option is Samsung reducing it’s royalty license to SanDisk to gain synergy with the top seller, reduce SanDisk’s bottom line and secure channel distribution of flash memory.

However if a deal goes ahead, it could block efforts by Samsung rivals Toshiba and Hynix Semiconductor to topple Samsung’s market leadership. Toshiba runs joint production lines with SanDisk and Hynix is also conducting joint re-search with the US group. Samsung controls 42.3 per cent of the NAND flash memory market, trailed by Toshiba with 27.5 per cent and Hynix with 13.4 per cent, says market researcher iSuppli.

Source:  Financial Times.

Toshiba, like SanDisk, found a grand jury subpoena in their mail late last week. The allegations are related to flash memory NAND price fixing.

The probe comes from the highest level and considering the purchase of M-Systems by SanDisk along with the other big hitter of flash memory makers is Samsung, it’s very possible flash memory price fixing could have taken place.

Toshiba claims no wrong doing, but the filing implicates 23 other companies, who most likely source their NAND flash memory from SanDisk or Samsung, in the allegations.

At this time, the officials from Samsung were not available for comment.

Source: Ziff Davis News

Update: More info here

The other day (literally) a fellow blogger and I where talking about why cell phones are so damn proprietary and if someone could develop a phone with the same open-source mindset as say WordPress (this blogging platform) than our world would be much better off. Well apparently I’ve been living under a rock.

From OpenMoko comes the Neo 1973 open-source cell phone based off the Linux kernel.

We selected chips that have complete documentation publicly available, such as the ARM-based Samsung S3C2410 SOC. We added a debug port with complete access to JTAG and a serial console. This phone is designed for open-source development.

With a sporty 640×480 LCD that holds a beautiful 283 dpi the visual from the Neo 1973 should be amazing.

Unlike the first version of the iPhone the Neo 1973 will have 128MB RAM with 64MB NAND flash and an expandable microSD slot (bonus 512MB card ships with the phone).

So hackers, gadget hounds and side project guru’s I think this is worth a closer look. At just $300 - what a deal.

This first run of release units is more geared towards developers so don’t expect any retail phones to hit BestBuy just yet.

OpenMoko Neo 1973 home page

We tried to escape the iPhone buzz, but recent information came to light after some folks unscrewed the iPhone to see what’s inside. This is what flash memory they found.

The Apple iPhone flash memory is comprised of two technologies. NAND flash and NOR flash. Without knowing how Apple used these technologies we can easily conclude (without certainty) how the flash memory is being used.

Since NAND flash memory is best suited for re-write and allows an operating system to view the flash memory as a hard drive type storage space, the iPhone most likely uses NAND memory to store MP3 files, photo’s, video and other ‘come-n-go’ files.

The NOR flash memory is best suited for storing code where re-writes aren’t as frequent. NOR would be used for storing application information, such as web browser, OS, Viewer files and other ’stable’ code which wouldn’t change too often.

It was also reveled that Samsung is supplying Apple’s iPhone with the main microprocessor chip and NAND flash memory. Intel is supplying the NOR flash memory to the iPhone.

The Samsung skinny Ultra Edition II went on sale in France. The U600 went on display at the 3GSM show, but little was known about it. Well, other then it’s the skinniest phone around at just 10.9mm. Now, we’ve learned there is a Bang & Olufsen digital power amplifier along with an intelligent power system to make sure this little guy can supply the juice.

The Samsung U600 is available in beige, blue, red, silver, white, black and brown.

Samsung is in collaboratin with Beyonce on their SGH-F300 Ultra Music phone where she will heavliy promot the product in spot TV commercials, ads and concert tours. Not a bad move for Samsung as teaming with Beyonce gains some serious followers. The deal also gives F300 owners an exclusive and embedded sound track, “Irreplaceable” pre-loaded on the cell.

The F300 is a unique device with two faces. A large display for viewing pics, videos and movies and on the back side, a smaller display for phone entry and dialing. With the ultra slim design and expandible microSD card, it’s a very attractive deal. Not available everywhere, but with Beyonce on-board it will be soon. (more…)

Kingmax is the first to make a big leap into the 4GB MicroSDHC territory. To get perspective on how small this flash memory is consider a MiniSD card being about 1/2 the size of a US postage stamp. A MicroSD card is 1/2 smaller then that - or about 1/4 the size of a postage stamp.

The Secure Digital High Capacity card (SDHC) is based off Samsung’s 63 nanometer processing technology - currently the world’s smallest. The MicroSD cards are the #1 flash memory used in PDAs, cell phones and SmartPhones. Not only did Kingmax decrease the size but they increased (more…)

The Samsung SCH-U620 is about to ship and with streaming live, digital TV from Verizon V CAST TV service. With a 320×240 screen and a MicroSD slot to stash all those American Idol shows there is no reason to jump at a $600 Apple iPhone. On top of that, it does things the Apple iPhone does not, like read Microsoft Office docs and PDF files.

(more…)

It’s very possible the end of MultiMediaCards or MMC flash memory is at our front door. Over 62% of new cell phones in ‘06 used a smaller format like MicroSD and only two known phones where introduced exclusively with MMC expansion slots (Nokia N72 and BenQ M81).

“Between them, Samsung and LG introduced 65 new handsets with removable memory card slots in the last nine months, all of them using the microSD slot format,” comments Stuart Robinson, Director of the Handset Component Technology service at Strategy Analytics. (more…)