Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a provider of advanced semiconductor technology, announced Thursday that it has collaborated with Sun Microsystems Inc., to develop a single-level-cell NAND flash memory device for use in solid state drives (SSDs) that offers much higher endurance levels than any other flash memory device.

Offering a five-fold increase in data write-and-erase cycles over standard SLC (single-level cells) flash memory, Samsung's new server-grade SLC NAND memory is designed to be used in SSDs to extend the life cycle of any high-transaction data processing server. It is expected to deliver high endurance in the arena of 24/7 mission-critical computing.

The ultra-endurance server-grade memory has been developed in cooperation with Sun over the past several months.

Samsung Electronics is a provider of semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2007 consolidated sales of US$ 103.4 billion. Employing approximately 150,000 people in 134 offices in 62 countries, the company consists of four main business units, including digital media business, LCD business, semiconductor business, and telecommunication business. Samsung Electronics is a producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs.

Probable applications for the new ultra-endurance SLC flash include use in video streaming, high-transaction data processing, search engine operations and other high-speed server functions. Samsung said that its server-grade SLC memory will provide a 100X increase over conventional hard drives, in the number of data transfers (input/output per second or I/OPS) per watt, registering a substantial power savings in a market sector, where rising cooling bills are being watched.

"We have been working with Sun to develop this new 8Gb server-grade SLC flash memory, which will give IT managers the best in high-density, high-endurance memory design with markedly less energy consumption than we see today," said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. "'Endurance up, power down' is going to be the mantra of IT innovators at enterprises everywhere, and server grade SLC flash is ideally situated to deliver on that equation," Elliott added.

"Sun sees incredible upside to using server grade SLC NAND flash to accelerate customers' applications, and we plan to incorporate this technology into our line of servers and storage," said Michael Cornwell, lead technologist for flash memory, Sun Microsystems. "Flash SSDs of this quality and performance when included in our systems and Open Storage products with Solaris ZFS will revolutionize the hardware marketplace. We are excited to be working closely with Samsung to lead this game-changing technology revolution."

According to research firm, IDC of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, global demand for enterprise SSDs is expected to rise to 2.24 million units in 2012.