SanDisk Announces iNAND 7232: eMMC 5.1, 128GB, and SLC/TLC
by Joshua Ho on July 13, 2015 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- SanDisk
- Mobile
- Tablets
- eMMC
- iNAND Extreme
Today at MWC Shanghai, SanDisk announced a follow-up to their iNAND 7132 eMMC solution, the iNAND 7232. For those that are unfamiliar with the iNAND 7132, I would refer to our previous coverage on that storage solution. At a high level, the real importance of that product launch was that SanDisk was able to use TLC NAND to provide relatively low-cost storage with high performance using SLC caching much like their consumer SSDs. Peak sequential reads on the earlier 7132 series could reach 280 MB/s, and peak sequential writes also reached 125 MB/s on an eMMC 5.0 HS400 interface. There were 16, 32, and 64 GB SKUs which didn’t do much to push the bar in terms of on-device storage, but there are some real cost and performance benefits for certain scenarios that could provide an advantage over traditional MLC eMMC solutions at the high end which would go a long way to killing the 16GB SKU that has plagued the high-end smartphone for so long.
The iNAND 7232 is an obvious successor to the 7132, as it’s built on SanDisk’s 15nm process with TLC NAND and an SLC cache somewhere in the range of 500MB to 1GB, but this will depend upon the SKU. However, unlike the 7132 SanDisk has finally eliminated the 16GB SKU so the only available storage capacities are 32, 64, and 128 GB. This new solution also supports eMMC 5.1 with a command queue to improve random IO read speeds. Sequential read speeds are unchanged with a maximum of 280 MB/s, but sequential write improves to hit up to 150 MB/s from the 125 MB/s on the 7132. The iNAND 7232 is currently sampling to OEMs, and it’s likely that we’ll see devices shipping with this solution in the fall.
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Shadow7037932 - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
>However, unlike the 7132 SanDisk has finally eliminated the 16GB SKU so the only available storage capacities are 32, 64, and 128 GB.Sweet. Hopefully, this means 32GB becomes the "standard" for midrange phones going forward.
Samus - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
Ditto. I still can't get over some of these phones being sold for $650+ that have 16GB storage and no expansion. After the operating system updates and some apps, you have room left for literally one HD movie which is completely ridiculous.TheWrongChristian - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
If you're watching movies where being HD versus SD makes a difference, you're really watching the wrong movies!Shadow7037932 - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
SD (480p or below) is almost unwatchable especially if it was badly compressed.ishould - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
Just be TheWrongChristian and watch from 5ft away, ppi problem solved. Add an extra foot for every inch over 5" of course.Flunk - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
Do most phones even have enough battery life to playback a 2.5 hour movie in HD?phoenix_rizzen - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
I've watched 3 HD movies (720p x264 in mkv) on my phone, in a row, on a single charge. They weren't 2 hour movies, though, so I think the total run time was only around 4-4.5 hours. It was at night, with the lights off, so the screen was turned way down. That makes a big difference.LG G2
Haven't tried with FullHD movies, though.
Impulses - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
The problem is the average smartphone user doesn't do that, at all, ever, they wouldn't even know how to... If there's no connection and/or it's not on Netflix/Hulu they really don't care.Storage is still a long term issue for them, but it's seldom thought about initially because it's a hard thing to project, so market isn't gonna wake up and complain anytime soon.
From what I've seen of truly average users (older folks etc), their long term storage issues usually stem from having too many photos or recorded videos and no immediately obvious way (to them) to offload it all.
Heck even iMessage and it's dumb database the keeps pics even after messages are deleted can balloon to 4GB and become an issue. My mother's Moto X has something like 6GB of photos taken.
fokka - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
why should we limit ourselves to SD when we have 1080p and 4k now? also, this is a hardware site, not a movie forum, so let's talk about hardware, not taste in movies.nafhan - Monday, July 13, 2015 - link
Oh man, I wanted to store several poorly encoded indy movies that you've never heard of on my phone, but I couldn't fit them all because it's only got 16GB of storage!Is that better? :)