SanDisk Ships World's First Memory Cards With 64 Gigabit X4 NAND Flash

One of the most popular names in the memory card industry is SanDisk. The company makes a wide variety of memory cards to fit just about every device on the market from mobile phones to portable game consoles. SanDisk announced today that it has shipped the world's first flash memory cards using 64 gigabit X4 NAND flash technology.

The technology allows the card to store 4 bits of data per cell, twice as much data per cell as traditional MLC NAND used in memory cards. The new technology is built on the 43nm process and the 64Gb chips are high-density single-die devices. The new technology will be used in SDHC cards of 8GB and 16GB capacities and in 8GB and 16GB Memory Stick Pro Duo cards for Sony devices. Pricing and availability information are unavailable at this time.

"The development and commercialization of X4 technology represents an important milestone for the flash storage industry," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief operating officer, SanDisk. "Our challenge with X4 technology was to not only deliver the lower costs inherent to 4-bits-per-cell, but to do so while meeting the reliability and performance requirements of industry standard cards that employ MLC NAND. Our world-class design and engineering team has applied its deep experience with high speed 2 and 3-bits-per-cell flash chip designs and collaborated closely with our leading design partners to develop and perfect new and powerful error correction algorithms to assure reliable operation. This intensive multi-year effort has generated powerful new patents and know-how, and demonstrates SanDisk's relentless drive for innovations that result in the ever expanding use of flash storage in consumer applications such as music, videos, photos, games and numerous third party applications."