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Technology

New Flash Memory Chip for MP3 players 48

Posted by Hemos from the start-the-mass-production dept.
The Conkman writes "In a press release released today, Japan-based companies Toshiba and Matsushita announced their partnership with California-based Sandisk in the manufacturing of a new flash memory chip for portable mp3 players. The release states that the flash memory chip ( approx. the size of a postage stamp ) is anticipated to have an initial size of 32MB to 64MB and a data throughput of 2Mbs per second working towards a goal of a 256MB chip with a data throughput of 10Mbs per second. The mass production of the chip ( and the player I assume ) is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of next year. "
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New Flash Memory Chip for MP3 players More

New Flash Memory Chip for MP3 players

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  • Now isn't that cool.

    The Rio just didn't have enough capacity.

    -awc
  • they say 32MB which is 8 times more memory than 32Mb -- let's hope for the latter, even though memory devices are usually stated in mega BITS to amke 'em sound bigger (although the technical reason is probably to remove any kind of access-related info from the memory size spec).

    256 mega BYTES of storage is a SIGNIFICANT improvement.

  • Re:Nifty (Score:1)

    by bert ( 4321 )
    I agree, 32 MB doesn't cut it. I kind of wonder why the first MP3 players were given so little memory, it isn't as though memory was so very expensive at the time. Maybe back then fear for the great lables was more of an issue?

    Anyway, I hope these goodies will be cheap, 64 to 128 MB is nice for an MP3 player.
  • I think they wanted them to be as cheap as possible.

    In the shower this morning I was wondering how successful low capacity fixed disk drives would be. How shockproof can one make a hard drive?

    -awc
  • I don't suppose there are any concrete details to support this? A website? A name? Sure, there are other formats out there, but I find it hard to believe that some mysterious unknown format is going to make MP3 players "junk in nine months."

    The only next-gen standard I've heard of (though I don't really keep up on this) is MP4, based off VQF. And while it hasn't yet caught on completely, it is available. If portable players had the horsepower to do the decoding, it would make for superior systems. (Lower bitrate needed to get the same sound quality as MP3 -> more songs in same amount of space.)

    So... Where's the beef?
  • Will it be cheaper than ordinary RAM?

    It would be neat to use flash memory as a fast swap space at some point and actually be worth it. Right now it would be cheaper just to buy more RAM.
  • You can already buy Compact Flash cards with well over 64MB of memory, at quite reasonable prices. Why don't the player makers concentrate on adding CF slots, rather than including more internal memory? No matter how much internal memory there is, it will never be enough anyway. Besides, the simplicity of changing an album by swapping out a card can't be duplicated with internal memory, even using USB--or even IEEE1394.

    I think they should change their strategy to not include ANY internal memory at all, thus also lowering costs, and completely rely on storage media.
  • Having finally installed an mp3 player, i was hoping someone could suggest a site i could download from. The few I've tried all are too busy to get much of a response from

    It's kind of off-topic/on-topic

    thanks

  • I didn't think this was worthy of Ask Slashdot, but I figured at least it's pertinent to this topic....

    We're looking at using an mp3 player for our phone system's hold music, but the ones I've looked at don't come with AC adaptors--which would be critical. The phone system is actually on a PC, and we currently just jack a portable CD player into it, but that thing is wearing out. (The PC is really owned by our phone services provider, so I can't hack it--at least I'm not supposed to.) The area where this equipment is housed doesn't really lend itself to hooking up a full-blown CD player or second PC.

    Anyone know who makes an mp3 player that can take an AC adaptor?


    Thanks!

  • Consider:

    -I have MP3 encoders on my computer.
    -I have the ability to transfer MP3 files to the player.
    -I now have a player with music on it.

    Now tell me how a new standard will nullify one of the above. Is it going to magically erase all MP3 encoders I have? Will my player cease to play MP3's because it senses that it's no longer state of the art?

    chris
  • Are you confusing network throughput numbers with
    data storage numbers? I've never seen anyone
    refer to the amount of RAM on these chips in
    megabits. The original Rio had 32MB of storage,
    not 32Mb. So I would fully expect this new storage
    to be pushing 256MB, not 256Mb (which would just
    be 32MB).

    Uhhh

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • mp3.com
    "there once was a big guy named lou
  • Make sure that if you get an MP3 player, it's flashable to support a different decoding standard. None are yet, as far as I know, but hey..

    There's an idea. Build a generic audio playing device, with a flash ROM to hold the decoding software. Then you can release plugin's (well, not really, but okay) to download to the device to change the type of music it will decode. Downside here is that you would need an actual processor in the thing instead of just a hardware decoder. Probably running at a fairly good speed too. Hmm.. Must research this..

    ---
  • So.. Please think first. The player you buy today may be junk in nine months.
    I was responding to this. The player will not become junk if I can still use it to listen to my personal music collection.

    People will stop wanting to use MP3 because they either have to break the law (bladeenc) or pay $$$ for an encoder
    If I'm using it to listen to MP3's now:
    1. I already have paid the $$ for an encoder; unless...
    2. I just grab MP3's from the Net, in which case I'm breaking the law. (or are you assuming there are any owners of portable players who listen exclusively to MP3's legally recorded by someone else?
    3. I don't care if people stop listening to MP3's. I don't feel any need to be fashionable about the format of my music. I can still use the device to listen to MP3's of my music in 10 years and enjoy it just as much.

    I'm speaking here as someone who still owns a Beta (as in -max) VCR. I can still use it to record and playback (and the quality still beats the average VHS), the only thing I can't do is rent movies for it. Extend that to MP3's: I don't rent music. Is that clear now?

    Chris

  • I have never heard anyone, especially a manufacturer of semiconductors, refer to the RAM on a chip in bytes. Just check any electronics catalogue.

  • ahh... or external cd-rom drive...

    Anyone know if it'd be possible to make an adapter for a cdrom drive that connects to the flashram slot on the rio?
  • didn't seem to have any of the artists I was after, many searches from lycos gave plenty of siteswith the artists, but all the servers were too busy/dead
  • uhm...dave...what you want to do is to break the law...that's not too wise to announce.

    MY NAME IS DAN AND I JUST ROBBED A BANK! BUT THE BANK DIDNT HAVE MUCH MONEY IN IT! WHAT BANKS HAVE LOTS OF MONEY?
  • The address space is not the problem. As the Rio is layed-out now, the first 64MB are reserved for internal Flash. The rest is for the external Flash.

    Flash is addressed in sectors (which are currently 512 (+16) bytes). There's 24 bits to select a sector so that gives you 8GB of address space.

    I don't know about the electronics of the Rio itself, but as far as programming the flash (from your PC,- e.g. downloading audio) I don't see that there is a limitation, but the 8GB.

    Mind you, the older versions of the Linux software perform an AND on the sector so that it always accesses the lower 32MB of 64MB (sector &= 0x3F00) which of course needs to be fixed to work with > 32MB devices. But maybe that's taken care of, I haven't checked lately.

    (I have written a block-device driver for the Rio for Linux, which I never released because I never quite finished it and it's pretty useless really. Plus I returned the Rio to Frys. I did create/mount an EXT2 fs on it though.. ;o))

    Breace.
  • Not really on topic, but Matsushita and Toshiba are one in the same. The former owns the latter. It is kind of like saying Pioneer and Kenwood announced that they will have working portable Dolby Digital DVD players/viewers by the end of the year. Same labs, different names.

    Also, to my knowlwedge, Matsushita doesn't market anything with that name emblazoned on it, do they? Or do they do it in other countries (ie. not the US of A)? I thought they were pretty much a zaibatsu that pulled the stings and reaped the profits of a number of companies.

    One other thing. How do you all pronounce that word? I always said Mat-su-SHIT-a but a friend who works there says it is Mat-su-shit-a.
    uh huh huh I said sh*t..... twice.
  • it would be "Ma-tsu-shi-ta"
  • I don't know what sizes other than 8 MB, but Sony has what seems like the same thing.

    It's a flash ram memory unit that holds 8MB. It's currently in production as far as I know, because I have one (in my dog).
    It is about 2.5 cm by 1 cm by 3 mm. This size includes tha plastic case of the unit as well as the contacts and sliding switch to lock the memory. The unit as a whole seems pretty rugged and I wouldn't have any qualms with having a bunch in my pocket with my keys and pilot.

    I would imagine they plan of making larger mem sizes.

  • Portable mp3 makes possible a world that I would love to live in. Imagine you have your portable mp3 player that costs less than bread and has a wireless receiver system capable of 11Mbs.. now add to that tommorrow's compression standards that allow you to transmit a complete song in about 1/2 a second. You have a number of base stations that are constantly transmitting songs, in the order of 180 songs a minute and there's multiple stations in any one area. You turn on your portable mp3 like device and pick up a song, listen to it for as little or as long as you like and go grab another one.. maybe you really like this song, so you send it to a friend and he sends it to a friend.. songs get transmitted around the world in a few hours and we have a hit.. a hit caused by people actually liking the music.. not by record companies buying up CD's to get on the charts to get more air time.. When air time is unlimited and more than any one person can ever listen to, music will be free. (that's free like freedom folks.. but who doesn't like free beer?)

  • Arent MP3's still not quite CD quality? And you can still have stuff ups with the recording, as a friend of mine has...


  • There are several options. The easy one is pick up a rio and 1.5 V switch adjustable regulator from some evil place like tandy. The other choice is to use a simple 6 V regulated supply and a bunch of diodes to drop the voltage to about 1.5V. The next level up would be a device on the back of the PC that has a bunch of diodes off different pins and then run that to a cap and use diodes to drop it to 1.5 V. The easy solution seem to involve lots of diodes...

    I may have details on how to do this on my rio review web [abnormal.com] page soon.

    In a more topical comment...
    I just got my PMP300 limited edition and with 96M For the first time I've run out of stuff before I've run out of memory. Time to go collect more stuff. Am I the only one who goes bands to rip the sutff? I find most bands will give you a CD for putting their stuff on the net.

    -tim

  • OK, I'm not here to discuss the new 256MByte EEPROM or whatever. My only debate is why use solid state memory at all? 256MB is not going to be enough for those die-hard mpeggers that settle for nothing less than 256Kb/s. You get 68 minutes of music at this rate. The chip is going to be expensive too, so don't expect 1GB of solid state in your pocket for under $200.

    The coolest (in concept) mp3 player out there uses Iomega Clik! discs for storage. at 40MB they hold barely an album at 112Kb/s compression, but they are small and cheap. What about other small storage methods? Anyone thought of Data-MiniDisc? Portables could easily be made to play these (along with normal MD's!)

    Players with an hour of storage aren't going to get the market penetration until they cost well under 100 bucks.

    ~GoRK
  • Yeah, they do... when it comes to cd-roms and other parts, they are marketed unde3r different names. It's probably easier to combine names for import purposes ( who knows ) e.g. Matsushita-Kobuki CD-Roms
  • I want a PCS phone w/ an intergrated MP3 player sooooo bad! They I could have Metallica play when I got a call. Also has the useful benefit of giving me one less gadget to worry about while keeping all the functionality. :) Those memory cards could double to holding my extra phone book and stuff. :) Throw in a PDA and a Game Boy and I'll bow down and kiss your feet.

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