Transcend continues their effort into the embedded systems applications with their most recent announcement of the SATA Flash Module. The high-speed SATA flash modules specifically designed for use in thin clients, blade servers, ultra-compact sub-notebooks and space-limited industrial installations allows Transcend to offer up their lightweight and compact SATA flash memory modules.

With solid-state flash memory being non-volatile and more robust than spinning hard disk solutions, it makes the SATA flash module ideal for harsher environments with more demanding applications, such as embedded systems, medial instruments, factory automation equipment, network infrastructure and other industrial equipment.

What I like most about flash memory modules is the low power consumption, shock and vibration resistance, longer data retention durability and instant access time (no spin up or seek times we traditionally see in HHDs).

Transcend’s SATA flash modules are offered in 1GB and 2GB capacities, in both vertical and horizontal versions to satisfy industrial application requirements.

I have my reasons for watching the flash memory market.  One of the key elements I look for is falling flash memory prices.  For me, dropping memory prices’ is an indicator other activities I’m in will continue to grow.  Today I read an interesting article which gave some great detail about the continued drop of flash memory.

I’ll start off with a quote to the article, then you can click through for more:

Prices of NAND flash memory could plummet this year because of weak demand and an oversupply of NAND flash in the market, analysts said on Wednesday.

If concerns about the U.S. economy deepen, consumers may reduce spending on the phones and other devices that use NAND flash, weakening demand for the chips and depressing prices, said Nam Hyung Kim, director and chief memory analyst for iSuppli. He predicted that prices could fall by as much as 55 percent this year.

Up to 90 percent of NAND flash is sold as storage for MP3 players and cell phones, or as cards such as the MicroSD that are slotted into digital cameras and other devices.

The reduced price for flash could lead to cheaper products for consumers. Apple already dropped the price of its 1G-byte iPod Shuffle this week, to US$49 from $79, partly because of the falling prices of flash memory, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research.

More.

While forecasting strong sales and profitability in 2008, Silicon Motion projects that demand for low-density NAND flash will beat that for the high-density segment, driven by demand for microSD cards and embedded memory, said company president and CEO Wallace Kou.

Silicon Motion guides that annual sales will grow by 25-35% on year with gross margins to stay in the range of 52-53% in 2008. Although memory makers strive to migrate NAND flash applications to higher density under sales and profitability concerns, that makes no difference for controller makers, Kou said. For a controller IC design house, he stressed that memory density has no relationship on controller sales, given that any NAND flash application (such as USB drive or memory card) only requires one controller, regardless of memory density.

In light of global economic trends, Kou said demand for low-density NAND flash products should be better, partially due to sales spurred by the bundling of memory cards with handsets. Demand for microSD cards will continue to expand in 2008, Kuo said. Out of the 96.3 million units of controllers shipped in the fourth quarter, 89.3 million were for memory cards and USB drives, he detailed.

SanDisk announced today a massive 12GB microSDHC card which is 50% larger in storage capacity than it’s previous model (8GB).

So what does this mean?  It means our mobile devices are getting one step closer to becoming a storage medium for all sorts of data, phone related or not.  From MP3 files, video and data files … with 12GB of flash memory, quit a lot can fit.  To put things into perspective, the microSDHC can hold [about] 1,500 MP3 songs, 3,600 photos and 24.5 hours of video.

If you haven’t used or seen a microSDHC card, make sure you stop off at your local computer store and take a look.  The size is incredibly small.  About the size of your pinky fingernail.

Some background info:  The SDHC format applies to SD flash memory which is larger than 2GB is storage space.  The new 12GB microSDHC card conforms to the SD 2.00 specification and has the theoretical maximum storage capacity of 32GB.

On a closing note, the new SanDisk microSDHC card has a transfer speed compatible with the Class 4 specification.  Too geeky for ya - let me sum it up: (more…)

So you drop $1,200 on a Nikon digital SLR camera, buy vacation airline tickets to Hawaii and now want a water tight case for underwater picture taking.  Well, save that large roll of cash and purchase the Liquid Image, 5 megapixel underwater scuba mask.  Slap in some microSD memory and you’re set for more pictures than your air tanks can hold.

New this year at CES is the Liquid Image underwater scuba mask.  The small digital lens/camera can take still pictures or record video at VGA quality with either a 5 MP or 3.1 MP lens.  The $99 price point is for the 5 MP version.

Take a close look at the diagram above and you’ll see a AAA battery pack, small storage area, shutter select option, cross hairs for centering and position of the lens along with microSD port & USB port for storing additional images or downloading what you have to PC.

The underwater scuba mask does look bulky but I personally think this is a great alternative to underwater cameras.

Underwater Video Scuba Mask product page.

What is Rockbox?

Rockbox is an open source software replacement for a larger number of MP3 players. Since Rockbox is open source this means an infinitely larger number of developers are constantly working on Rockbox…kinda like WordPress blogging software.

Rockbox aims to provide more functionality and efficiency to MP3 players.

In addition, Rockbox is a great management tool for flash memory. For example, I just found out Rockbox may be used to run microSDHC cards on microSD compatible devices. Although the Rockbox solution might not work for all devices, it’s a great place to start when looking for possible solutions.

Here are some key features of Rockbox:

• Support for over 15 Sound Codecs, including OGG and FLAC
• Gapless playback
• 5-band fully-parametric equalizer, and crossfeed (more…)
  

Here is an out-of-the-box solution for turning those high capacity Compact Flash memory cards into SATA hard drives. The CF to SATA hard drive adapter is ideal for using CF as a bootable device containing OS or application data.

The adapter is compatible with Compact Flash type I and II and will provide a full functioning SATA interface.

The adapter card is also fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Linux - in case the application is something other than embedded.

The CF to SATA adapter is $25 without power supply and $35 with power supply so a reasonable price for what you get. (more…)

GetUSB.info just got word from USB Fever they are blowing out an Ultra-Slim USB MicroSD card reader for only ONE PENNY.

The MicroSD card reader fits inside a USB connector and is ideal for those transferring files from mobile phones and PDAs which support the MicroSD format.

Only $2.99 shipping anywhere in the world so total cost is only $3.00 (more…)

Okay, so UDMA is not U-Da-MAn but the new Lexar card reader is cool enough looking to make them “the man.”

The new UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) is a pop-top design which upon clicking the top cover (say on the Lexar logo) the card reader slots pop up for flash memory access.

The Lexar card reader connects to your PC via mini-to-full-size USB cable. The device readers either CompactFlash compatible or SDHC compatible SD cards.

So just to bring everyone up-to-speed: What is UDMA technology?: (more…)

GetFlashMemory posted an article the other day about the world’s first wireless memory card. I was very excited to hear about this technology and recently found a review of the Eye-Fi product.

This is what folks had to say:

Crunch Gear said:

All-in-all, this is a solid device. It is comparable to any 2GB SD card on the market but it gives you the ability to upload your pictures in a much cooler fashion. And if you can’t wait, if you plug a loaded card into the USB reader, it will automatically upload your pictures to your photo service via USB. Yay, all-around convenience - Blake Robinson

Engadget said:

So basically Eye-Fi takes a step forward by cutting out the middleman (in this case, a USB cable to your camera, or a media reader for your vanilla SD card), but two steps back in making the assumption that you want all of the tens (or hundreds) of megs of photos on the card uploaded in full res using your camera’s batteries, and yet don’t need said photos in your photo app, not just some folder - Ryan Block

SlashGear said:

wireless networks are set up using the Eye-Fi website, not through any sort of interface on your camera itself, and you’re limited to secured WiFi hook-ups rather than being able to take advantage of any open cloud you might pass through. Even with 802.11g, transfers of large resolution images could - and do - take a long time, and given that there’s no ability to select which to keep and which to throw (unless you delete them prior to connecting) it could be a frustrating experience - Chris Davies

Putting it all together I am glad to see this technology come to market and appears to be an appreciated process for downloading those oh-so-valuable photos.

Source: SlashGear