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Adata Outs 40MB/s UHS microSD Card
Adata has launched a 32GB UHS-1 microSD card offering 40MB/s write bandwidth.
Adata, which recently has been making a big push in the solid-state disk (SSD) drive market, has announced its first microSD cards that support the UHS-1 specification. The firm’s Premier Pro cards come in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities with the firm citing read bandwidth of 45MB/s and all important write bandwidth of 40MB/s.
The SD Card Association defined the UHS-I specification as part of its SD Version 3.01 standard, and while Adata’s new cards boast impressive speeds there is a lot of headroom left, with UHS-1 supporting bandwidths up to 104MB/s. Adata’s cards, roughly translated to the ‘X’ speed rating used on a number of memory cards, come out at 266X.
Ray Chu, product manager at Adata said, “These cards have the best read and write performance among all comparable products offered by the industry’s key players. When that is combined with the aggressive pricing options in store for this line, the result is going to be a bonanza for our customers worldwide.”
Global Semiconductors On the Rise
Global semiconductor revenue is expected to rise at faster and force bigger chipmakers to acquire smaller rivals to increase their market share, according to bean counters at research outfit IDC.
In an industry report, IDC predicts that revenue may expand by between six percent and seven percent this year. Global semiconductor sales rose 3.7 percent to $301 billion in 2011, as orders for chips used in wireless devices offset declining revenue for computing-related chips, IDC said.
But it thinks all this will coase nergers and acquisitions among chipmakers will continue. Already Qualcomm bought Atheros and Texas Instruments took over National Semiconductor. But IDC thinks that industry consolidation may allow bigger chipmakers to offer products that are used in a wider range of applications.
DRAM Prices Going Up
iSuppli is reporting that global chip revenue should increase to $325.2 due to supply and demand. Two months ago iSuppli originally forecasted a 5.8 percent increase to $320.1 billion. Apparently, DRAM chips will be impacted the most with a price increase due to supply issues as a result of the recent earthquake in Japan. iSuppli had originally forecasted sales of DRAM chips to shrink by four percent this year instead of seeing a drop of 10.6 percent.
Samsung Gains On Intel
Globally semiconductor revenue is expected to increase this year, with Samsung gaining noticeable ground on top semiconductor company Intel in market share, Gartner said in a study released Wednesday.
Revenue is expected to reach a “landmark” US$300.3 billion in 2010, up 31.5% from 2009, according to preliminary results released by Gartner. The semiconductor market has been rebounding after the worldwide recession curtailed chip revenue in 2009, when year-over-year revenue declined by 10%.
As the economy stabilized this year, semiconductors manufacturers quickly added capacity to meet the growing demand of parts from system makers. But semiconductor demand started weakening again starting in the third quarter this year, Gartner said. Read More……