Micron Announces True 20 nm SSD Trio, Late 2013 DDR4 Launch

From DailyTech: Micron Technologies Inc. (MU) endured a rocky 2012 after losing its long time chief executive in a tragic plane crash. But the company -- America's last major DRAM (memory) manufacturer -- has forged ahead with a revamped leadership.

In our 2013 Consumer Electronics Show conversation with Micron, the semiconductor company emphasizes that after a bit of mixing it is sticking with a cohesive (and sensical) branding solution. Lexar will be the official brand for flash drives, memory cards, and peripherals. Crucial will be the brand for memory and SSDs targeted at consumers. And Micron will sell under its own brand name SSDs and memory to corporate consumers.

Among the major product launches for Micron at CES 2013 is a trio of new solid state drives dubbed M500. Built on true 20 nanometer (not be confused with "20 nm-class" a term sometimes used to refer to 22 nm, etc.) MLC NAND chips, the lineup looks to leverage Micron's years of expertise in both NAND chipmaking and building first-party SSDs. (Micron hit 25 nm in early 2011.)

The biggest member of the new family is the 2.5-inch drive, which measures a slender 7 millimeters thick. Micron is including an adapter bracket for both consumers which will increase the effective thickness to 9.5 mm to provide a tighter fit in larger bays.

The 2.5-inch version will be available in February, with pricing still being worked out (but expect below $1/GB on most models. THe drive will be available in 120, 240, 480, and 960 GB capacities.

Micron also showed us its latest memory (differentiated under the "good" -- Ballistix Sport; "better" -- Ballistix Tactical; and "best" -- Ballistix Elite) modules. It's offering up a very low profile Sport line module (Sport VLP) and a low profile Tactical module (Tactical LP). Pricing to these units is identical to their full-size counterparts; Micron's product managers tell us they expect to eventually see an erosion of the larger form factors as customers gravitate to the sleek low-profile packages.

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