Samsung is upgrading its memory technology and manufacturing processes, which could lead to price drops for solid-state drives (SSDs).
Many SSDs used in consumer laptops contain multilevel-cell (MLC) flash memory chips, which store bits of data at multiple levels in each cell. Samsung is trying to put three bits at multiple levels in a cell, an upgrade over two bits per cell.
Samsung will introduce a 64GB three-bit SSD in the first half of 2009, manufactured using a new process technology that involves using the 30-nanometer process rather than the company's current 42-nm process. The new process could make SSDs more cost-effective to manufacture.