A massive decline in the price of NAND flash memory, the chips that store photos in digital cameras and music in iPods, is prompting innovation among companies trying to increase sales.
今年的小工具中可能会看到更多的项目用户在小工具中有大量扩大的存储容量，USB（通用串行总线）闪存棒和内部存储以及新的低成本SSDS（固态光盘）在笔记本电脑中。
根据DrameXchange技术的说法，自8月中旬以来，主流4G位SLC（单级单元）NAND闪存芯片的价格下降了73％至周四延迟4.96美元。online clearinghousefor the chips. The chips hit a high of $18.50 on Aug. 14. The price of 4G bit MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash chips have taken a slightly worse dive, 75 percent down to $2.23 on Thursday, compared to its summer high of $8.85 per chip.
The difference between SLC and MLC is cost and life span. SLC normally costs about three times more than MLC, and has a lifetime of 100,000 write cycles. MLC has a lifetime of only 10,000 write cycles.
Toshiba and Samsung have both developed new 128G byte SSDs based in MLC NAND to expand their use in notebook PCs. The new SSDs are less expensive, giving notebook PC designers more choices in storage.
“在128G字节上，您将消费者提供他们期望的笔记本中的那种存储空间，”三星在采访时，三星闪光营销总监Jim Elliott Jim Elliott说。
To work around the lifespan issue, Toshiba and Samsung use controller chips to spread writes across the drive to avoid wearing out any one portion too quickly.
The new MLC-based drives are an important step forward for SSDs in the battle against hard disk drives (HDD). At 128G bytes, an SSD stands are far better chance of replacing an HDD in laptop computers because it removes some of the high-capacity advantage HDDs hold.
SSDs have several advantages over HDDs; they're lighter, more rugged, consume less power, make no noise and enable a computer to start up and load software faster than HDDs. But SSDs are a lot more expensive than HDDs, which is why they're mainly used in the business laptop market, where users are willing to pay more for performance and reliability.
Elliott believes SSDs for PCs will account for 27 percent of NAND consumption by 2011, particularly in business laptops and mobile devices.
SanDisk has taken a slightly different route in SSDs than Toshiba and Samsung. The company made a 72G byte SSD in a thinner form factor aimed at mobile devices. The drive takes up less space, so it could be used in a range of mobile devices, said Iri Trashanski, director of strategic business development at SanDisk.
He doesn't believe there will be a market for 128G byte SSDs for a while.
Brian Kumagi，东芝高级商业发展经理NAND闪存业务，相信MLC NAND芯片的较低成本将在看到128G字节SSD获得市场份额时发挥重要作用。
Toshiba is also offering MLC NAND SSDs in 32G byte and 64G byte capacities to entice laptop PC makers and makers of digital music players and other devices requiring more storage.
There are several other products where companies are adding NAND flash to increase storage capacity and improve devices. One, thanks to the iPhone, is handsets, said Elliott.
Multimedia handsets will likely see 8G bytes of embedded flash memory become the standard this year, and card slots are being added to a host of mobile phones to increase storage and for added content delivery, including movies, games, software and more.
此外，低价令人鼓舞的新创新，正如低NAND价格所帮助的那样，这个十年早些时候将筹码进入更多的iPod。一个区域是摄像机，即，Flipvideo and similar devices.
For $119.99, users can buy a Flip video camcorder that uses NAND flash memory to store 30 minutes of recordings.
In addition, devices such as GPS (global positioning system) for cars will need more flash when 3D (three dimensional) digital maps start replacing 2D maps.
用户的好消息是，今天世界上有这么多的NAND闪存制造商认为价格将保持低位或者至少合理长期。
In a report titled "Flash to crash," Macquarie Securities chip analyst Warren Lau wrote that NAND flash memory prices will likely remain low throughout the first half of this year, with little room for upside until the third quarter.
“我们继续怀疑，NAND Flash将在2008年上半年的侵略性生产坡道（在IM Flash和Toshiba）和消费品的季节性较弱时期（数字仍然相机，手机和MP3）中，我们将看到多余的供应，”他写道。
Much of the possible price movements in NAND flash actually depend on Apple because of the widespread popularity of the iPod and iPhone.
The company announced it has already shipped over 4 million iPhones and continues to ramp shipments. iPod shipment growth has dropped a bit, according to market researcher Gartner, but higher capacity iPod products such as the Touch have done well in the market.
“Apple是NAND Flash消费的关键驾驶员，并将继续对NAND Flash供应商产生很大影响，”Gartner在周一报告中表示。