With Apple widely rumored to be introducing refreshed MacBook Air models on or shortly after the release of OS X Lion this month, little is known about what might be different from the existing versions, but a new report claims the company may be using faster flash memory for the diminutive notebook’s storage.
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple may be adopting what is dubbed “Toggle DDR 2.0,” a new 19-nanometer process for creating NAND flash memory such as the onboard storage for the MacBook Air. According to Macotokara, the new flash memory offers 400 megabyte per second speed and will likely replace the Blade X-gale type found in current models.
The new 19-nanometer flash memory is said to be packaged on a smaller chip, and will be soldered onto the base circuit of the new thin-and-light notebook directly.
“The report noted that the Open NAND Flash Interface Working Group, which standardizes NAND flash, has released the ONFi 3.0 specification for 400MBps speeds, but most memory processing companies do not yet offer compatible chips,” AppleInsider notes. “It said that ‘Toggle DDR 2.0,’ which is a standardized procedure from the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, is believed to have been embraced by Apple.”
The rumor appears to come from a person within an “Asian electronics component company,” which may point to Samsung, who currently provides onboard storage chips for the MacBook Air after Apple initially launched the new models with Toshiba-branded memory. That seemingly innocuous change benefitted the hardware, with the flash storage seeing an increase in both read and write times -- from 209.8Mbps to 261.1Mbps on the read side, and from 175.6Mbps to 209Mbps on the write side.
OS X Lion has been rumored to be released as early as this week after the gold master was pushed out to developers last week, although a release in the later part of the month is widely expected.
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