Samsung Samples 50nm 16Gb NAND Flash

Samsung inches closer to making SSDs more mainstream

When it comes to storage technology on computers, hard drive technology has advanced the slowest as far as performance is concerned. Companies like Samsung are looking to Flash Solid State Disks (SSDs) to replace the spinning disk and reduce loading times for applications.

SSDs have the advantage of rapid response times without having to wait for a hard drive to spin up/seek and have drastically reduced power consumption compared to traditional hard drives. SSDs use zero watts when not being accessed, and as little as 200 milliwatts during read/write activities.

Given the lower power requirements, company’s like Sony and Fujitsu are looking to Samsung to provide SSDs for their mobile computers. Samsung also uses its SSD drives on the Q30 notebook and Q1 UMPC.

Samsung announced today that it has produced samples of the world's first 16Gb NAND flash memory device built on a 50 nanometer process. The multi-level cell (MLC) design uses a 4KB page size instead of the 2KB used in competing designs. As a result, read speeds are double that of 2KB designs while write speeds are increased by 150%.

The increased storage capacity and faster write speeds will help Samsung reach its goal of producing 128GB SSDs by the first half of 2008.

Samsung will begin mass production its new MLC 16Gb NAND flash memory chips in Q1 2007.

(c) www.dailytech.com

Cheaper LEDs from breakthrough in ZnO nanowire research

SEM image of p-type ZnO nanowires created by electrical engineering professor Deli Wang at UC San Diego . Note: the blue color was added in photoshop. Credit: Deli Wang/UCSD

Engineers at UC San Diego have synthesized a long-sought semiconducting material that may pave the way for an inexpensive new kind of light emitting diode (LED) that could compete with today's widely used gallium nitride LEDs, according to a new paper in the journal Nano Letters.

To build an LED, you need both positively and negatively charged semiconducting materials; and the engineers synthesized zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoscale cylinders that transport positive charges or "holes" – so-called "p-type ZnO nanowires." They are endowed with a supply of positive charge carrying holes that, for years, have been the missing ingredients that prevented engineers from building LEDs from ZnO nanowires. In contrast, making "n-type" ZnO nanowires that carrier negative charges (electrons) has not been a problem. In an LED, when an electron meets a hole, it falls into a lower energy level and releases energy in the form of a photon of light.
Deli Wang, an electrical and computer engineering professor from UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering, and colleagues at UCSD and Peking University, report synthesis of high quality p-type zinc oxide nanowires in a paper published online by the journal Nano Letters.
"Zinc oxide nanostructures are incredibly well studied because they are so easy to make. Now that we have p-type zinc oxide nanowires, the opportunities for LEDs and beyond are endless," said Wang.
Wang has filed a provisional patent for p-type ZnO nanowires and his lab at UCSD is currently working on a variety of nanoscale applications.
"Zinc oxide is a very good light emitter. Electrically driven zinc oxide single nanowire lasers could serve as high efficiency nanoscale light sources for optical data storage, imaging, and biological and chemical sensing," said Wang.
To make the p-type ZnO nanowires, the engineers doped ZnO crystals with phosphorus using a simple chemical vapor deposition technique that is less expensive than the metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique often used to synthesize the building blocks of gallium nitride LEDs. Adding phosphorus atoms to the ZnO crystal structure leads to p-type semiconducting materials through the formation of a defect complex that increases the number of holes relative to the number of free electrons.

"Zinc oxide is wide band gap semiconductor and generating p-type doping impurities that provide free holes is very difficult – particularly in nanowires. Bin Xiang in my group worked day and night for more than a year to accomplish this goal," said Wang.
The starting materials and manufacturing costs for ZnO LEDs are far less expensive than those for gallium nitride LEDs. In the future, Wang expects to cut costs even further by making p-type and n-type ZnO nanowires from solution.
For years, researchers have been making electron-abundant n-type ZnO nanowire crystals from zinc and oxygen. Missing oxygen atoms within the regular ZnO crystal structure create relative overabundances of zinc atoms and give the semiconductors their n-type, conductive properties. The lack of accompanying p-type ZnO nanowires, however, has prevented development of a wide range of ZnO nanodevices.
While high quality p-type ZnO nanowires have not previously been reported, groups have demonstrated p-type conduction in ZnO thin films and made ZnO thin film LEDs. Using ZnO nanowires rather than thin films to make LEDs would be less expensive and could lead to more efficient LEDs, Wang explained.
Having both n- and p-type ZnO nanowires – complementary nanowires – could also be useful in a variety of applications including transistors, spintronics, UV detectors, nanogenerators, and microscopy. In spintronics applications, researchers could use p-type ZnO nanowires to make dilute magnetic semiconductors by doping ZnO with magnetic atoms, such as manganese and cobalt, Wang explained.
Transistors that rely on the semiconducting properties of ZnO are also now on the horizon. "P-type doping in nanowires would make complementary ZnO nanowire transistors possible," said Wang.

(c) www.physorg.com

Google Misses YouTube Anti-Piracy Deadline

Google rings in the new year without its promised anti-piracy protection scheme

Although YouTube rang in 2007 with a virtual New Year's Eve festival complete with a performance from Warner Music, live performances and participation from hordes of online members, the company failed to meet its self-imposed deadline to implement anti-piracy protection on its site. In an agreement with Warner Music Group, YouTube promised in September to have an anti-piracy system in place that would feature an "advanced content identification and royalty reporting system."

The anti-piracy system to be in place by the end of 2006 was a part of a deal which allowed Google to distribute Warner music videos, artist interviews and other music-related content. When Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion USD in October, it was widely expected that Google's deeper pockets would give YouTube the financial backing to implement such anti-piracy measures.

Missing the year-end deadline could be seen as a virtual pothole on the road to a more controlled distribution channel, but YouTube still can save face by getting the system live within the opening weeks of 2007. "It is hugely important, especially from the rights holders' perspective, that the best efforts are being made to corral the stuff flowing through YouTube," said Michael McGuire of Gartner Research. "Rights holders are making specific bets on paths of distribution and are expecting serious effort to make uncontrolled distribution difficult for most folks to do."

For now, YouTube is leaving the ball in the user's court when it comes to copyrighted music by telling users that uploading content "shall be at your sole risk."

(c) www.dailytech.com

Rich Skrenta: Google won already

by Anders Bylund

Computer industry heavyweight Rich Skrenta thinks that Google has essentially won the online search and advertising war, and that the entire Internet is Google's to enjoy, direct, and profit from. Does he mean "won" in the sense of Athens at the battle of Marathon, or how the Iraqi information minister used it? Let's have a closer look.

Skrenta, who played instrumental parts in Netscape's search strategy, building the Open Directory, and developing the Amiga Unix OS, bases his claim on Google's technological lead and, in turn, the massive mindshare the company has built up over the years. He cites a study reporting that users looking at Google search results under a Yahoo logo are inclined to think the results less relevant, and vice versa. Following this, he argues, it doesn't really matter if Ask or Microsoft can beat Google at the search game, because it has already won that battle in the hearts and minds of consumers.

And what follows from Google's position at the center of the 'Net is a massive monetizing opportunity—which Google nailed down as well. The AdSense program is undeniably successful, though Skrenta may overstate its position. He claims that "Google's CPMs are $90-120, vs. $4-5 for an average browse page view elsewhere." We're somewhat suspicious of those figures here at the Orbiting HQ, and they may be his own best guess based on ad revenues at his own sites.

Skrenta keeps repeating his pithy mantra, "Google is not your competition, Google is the environment." He then says that Yahoo, for example, should follow the lead of Ask.com and surrender to the Google money machine. By his calculations, the Y is leaving $1.7 billion of annual revenue on the table by trying to run its own advertising network rather than letting AdSense/AdWords run the show.

By making advertising partners out of even potential competitors, and backing the whole thing up with arguably the best search engine available (though you may have other favorites), the Mountain View online Brobdingnagian has cemented its place as the central point of the Internet, the one place where all the buyers and the vendors, the readers and the publishers, meet up to conduct their business. To beat Google now, somebody would have to come up with a better search and a better advertising solution, and then convince the general public and the business world, respectively, of these feats.

It sounds daunting indeed, and Mr. Skrenta makes sense on many levels. I use and like a lot of Google's products every day. The company has plans to grow beyond the invisible borders of the online world pretty soon, starting with some tentative radio and print advertising programs. Call it the world's librarian, making a few pennies off every piece of information we all consume. Still, no victory is everlasting. We'll just have to see how long Google can sit on this throne. 10 years on the 'Net is epoch. Will Google still be the leader 10 years from now?

(c) www.arstechnica.com

China residents logging on in greater numbers

The number of Internet users in China increased by 30 percent last year, according to one of the country's government-sponsored news agencies. The total number of Internet users in China is now approximately 132 million, of whom 52 million (about 39 percent) are using broadband. By comparison, there are approximately 207 million Internet users in the United States.

China now boasts more Internet users than any other country in Asia, followed by Japan with 86 million. Larger than the Internet populations of Africa, Australia, and the Middle East combined, China's 132 million makes up over 30 percent of the total Internet population of Asia, which is approximately 387 million. The total global number of Internet users is thought to be just over a billion—less than a sixth of the planet's inhabitants.

Although Internet access isn't quite ubiquitous yet in China, other communications technologies are extremely pervasive. According to statistics provided by the Chinese embassy, the number of cell phone users in China isgreaterr than 430 million, which means that the country could potentially account for almost half of all cell phone purchases around the world.

As China's Internet population continues to increase, it could become more difficult for the Chinese government to enforce and maintain its censorship mechanisms. Often criticized by the international community for jailing Internet journalists who criticize state policy, the Chinese government uses complex firewalls to limit the accessibility of content that is sexual or critical of the country's government. According to United Press International, Chinese Internet users are increasingly using fake identity card numbers in order to access web sites and Internet games anonymously.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

Microsoft Gives Free Laptops to Bloggers

In a move to get favorable spins from key bloggers, Microsoft began sending them high-end notebooks loaded with Windows Vista Ultimate. Think it rubbed some people the wrong way?

One of the little publicized facts of the technology industry is that manufacturers and distributors routinely send out review hardware to press outlets, influential media figures, and others as a way to get publicity and raise awareness of their products. Many of these exchanges are on the up-and-up: journalists have to sign review agreements to return the units in a certain amount of time, and sometimes even provide credit information in the event the item is damaged or stolen. However, some manufacturers—particularly of low-cost or commodity items—don't care if the review units are returned, and sometimes items just arrive unsolicited: marketing and PR people are taking the chance that jut putting a product in proximity to a publisher or reviewer will make good things happen.

As common as these practices are, they create a bit of conundrum for journalists, since keeping or selling the items is effectively accepting a bribe and raises interesting ethical and tax issues.

This week, Microsoft has been rather publicly "outed" for sending full-loaded Acer Ferrari notebook computers pre-loaded with Windows Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 to selected high-profile bloggers. Microsoft contacted the bloggers directly and offered the "review units" with no strings attached, saying bloggers could write about them (or not), return the systems (or not), or give away the notebooks on their sites. Of course, since Vista is not yet available to consumers and a high-end laptop with everything pre-installed is a tempting offer, many of the bloggers jumped.

Some critics have argued Microsoft's practice is unethical; ethics aside, it certainly isn't uncommon in the technology industry, and is no doubt viewed by many as a savvy public relations move. A more pressing concern might be when reviewers fail to disclose how they receive review units, the terms attached to them, and any other conflicts of interest associated with their work. At least most of the bloggers Microsoft contacted have been up-front (even giddy) about their newfound boons; several say they plan to return the units to Microsoft.

Microsoft and PR firm Edelman have refused to say how many laptops were given to bloggers, or the units' value. Published reports have the number of systems between 80 and 100, with street prices ranging frm $2,000 to $2,4000 apiece.

(As a rule, I rarely review hardware or software, but, for the record, any review items I receive are either returned to the manufacturer or, with permission, donated to a charity or user group, and I disclose any relationship with the manufacturer or developer in the text of the review.)

(c) news.digitaltrends.com

No Longer "Made in Taiwan"

Innovation over simple contract manufacturing is the key to Taiwan's economic future, or demise

"Made in Taiwan," the label ingrained in every American, is quickly becoming an icon of the 90's rather than the everyday slogan it once was.

Contract manufacturing now sits in Taiwan’s rear view mirror as the country enters its first age away from just manufacturing. Taiwan’s industry was primarily based on manufacturing but since the late 1990's Taiwanese companies have taken the turn to cell phone development and PC designs, adding innovation to their list of operations.

Four Taiwanese manufacturers control over 70% of notebook manufacturing currently. The other Taiwanese notebook brands control another 10% of the manufacturing development. As early as 2001 the capacity in Taiwan to build notebooks all but vanished. The "Big 4" in notebook assembly builds exclusively in China.

One of the largest outsourcers to Taiwan is Dell, the world’s second largest PC maker. Over 50 percent of Dell's product development is done in its Taiwan branch according to CNET. That branch began with 50 employees in the early 2002 and currently has over 300.

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute announced that Taiwan had overtaken Japan in mobile phone PCB production earlier this year. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, better known as TSMC, has a 50% global market share for semiconductor foundries alone. Taiwanese manufacturers have nearly a 100% global market share for retail motherboards, power supplies, PC cooling and enclosures. However, there is a trend with all of these big Taiwan claims: virtually all of the production is done inside China.

Taiwanese companies were barred from manufacturing technology outside of Taiwan on less than 0.25 micron nodes until yesterday. The Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairsjust declared the 180nm node legall for Taiwanese-owned, Chinese-based manufacturing.

Even with all of these strong indicators that Taiwan has controlling interests in the world of PC manufacturing; investment analysts are already weary of Taiwanese companies in 2007. The TAIEX, or Taiwan Capitalization Weighted Stock Index, has lagged behind other Asian markets for five consecutive years -- about the same time the country began moving its manufacturing base from Taiwan to China.

(c) www.dailytech.com