Intel 335 Series SSD Equipped With 20-nm NAND 135
crookedvulture writes "The next generation of NAND has arrived. Intel's latest 335 Series SSD sports 20-nm flash chips that are 29% smaller than the previous, 25-nm generation. The NAND features a new planar cell structure with a floating, high-k/metal gate stack, a first for the flash industry. This cell structure purportedly helps the 20-nm NAND overcome cell-to-cell interference, allowing it to offer the same performance and reliability characteristics of the 25-nm stuff. The performance numbers back up that assertion, with the 335 Series matching other drives based on the same SandForce controller silicon. The 335 Series may end up costing less than the competition, though; Intel has set the suggested retail price at an aggressive $184 for the 240GB drive, which works out to just 77 cents per gigabyte."
Excellent deal on the price point (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we won't need so much of that rare earth stuff anymore. I still find it amazing that a hard drive with all that monkey motion going on inside is any cheaper than these SSDs.
Re:A tiny example of trickle down economics in act (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an example of what is known as 'trickle down economics' in action, which means that the more productive a company becomes (by getting profits from its current sales and re-investing the profits into the business, creating more efficiencies, new technologies) the lower it can set the prices accessing bigger and bigger markets.
Those who are poor (compared to Intel for example, because they do not have their own factories to produces these SSDs) are gaining from the rich (Intel investors) and see their lives improve (if they need and buy this product at the lower prices).
That is what all economics is, not a centrally planned economy, aiming at equal outcomes for different people and thus destroying the society by creating discrimination, which requires destruction of individual freedoms. But this is just normal economics (some call it 'trickle down') in action. A company searching for more profit investing its profits and creating new products that end up improving people's lives, and it's done with only the free market feed back loop, signalling the company that it is on the right track with its products.
Umm.. No, that's not what trickle down economics is. Instead, what you've described is simply capitalism actually working -- in a quest to find more revenue a firm is providing supply to customers at lower prices by improving efficiency via R&D.
Trickle-down economics (effectively -- but not exactly -- a pejorative term for supply-side economics) is the idea that a dollar given to those at the top of the socio-economic food chain will be redistributed down through the economy benefiting rather than being horded. It is used contrast against the "classic" or Keynesian view which is that the same dollar given to someone at the bottom will immediately be spent and will therefore work it's way across and up the socio-economic ladder benefiting all. A simple thought exercise which should make you question the validity of that idea:
Give $10 to a bum on the street (or Rush Limbaugh): ...
You -> Bum (Rush) -> Crack dealer -> Liquor store -> Liquor Distributor + Gun shop -> Liquor Distiller + UPS + Gun factory -> Farmer + Gas Station + Steel Factory ->
Give $10 to Bill Gates:
You -> Bill Gates -> Nothing
That $10 did not impact Bill's participation in the economy one bit. Bill will buy what he was going to buy before he got the $10. Hell, he could have simply used it to light up a palette of Androids and iPhones to heat his chalet.
Of course, this is grossly oversimplifying the debate, but it highlights why the majority of real economists are not supply-siders. Do yourself a favor and research this on your own before you buy into whatever nonsense you've been hearing (including mine, I suppose) and please try to stop spreading it yourself.