SanDisk starts shipping its first products based on four-bit-per-cell (4BPC) storage. Both standard SDHC and Memory Stick Pro Duo cards now use the much denser storage (versus existing 2BPC or 3BPC) to carry all their storage on 64-gigabit (8GB) chips; the move lets even a 16GB card use just two chips and should scale to allow for 64GB and larger-capacity cards in the future. It should also have implications for solid-state drives and others that depend on multi-level cell storage.
The initial cards just come in 8GB and 16GB capacities. SanDisk hasn’t said if prices will change, but if the same they should result in prices of $45 and $89 for the two SDHC capacities and corresponding Memory Stick Pro Duo prices of $66 and $112. Both memory cards should be already in stores.
Via electronista
