Sandisk ups the capacity of iNAND embedded flash drive to 16GB

Today's mobile handsets and portable handheld media players have become multimedia centers, packed with features such as digital cameras, games and music and video players. As the features for such devices increase, so too does the need for greater storage capacity. To address this SanDisk has announced the 16GB iNAND embedded Flash drive (EFD). The 16GB iNAND doubles the capacity of Sandisk’s 8GB iNAND and, thanks to recent advances in multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash technology, retains the standard JEDEC, (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council), 12x16mm package. Adhering to the JEDEC package and ball-out requirements, common throughout the industry, provides virtually “plug and play” integration and allows the drives to be designed into mobile handsets quickly. Additionally, iNAND devices utilize the industry-leading and field-proven SD interface and are designed to support mobile TV, multimedia downloading and other storage-hungry applications on portable systems such as mobile handsets, digital audio/MP3 players, gaming applications, GPS applications, personal media players and PDAs.

The iNAND 16GB is expected to be available for sampling to mobile handset vendors in Q2 2008, with Sandisk already looking ahead to an iNAND 32GB slated for introduction in the second half of 2008.