Mtron announced today that they have developed a 128GB 1.8" solid state drive (SSD) with a ZIF-type interface that is due to ship in April 2008.
Mtrons new SSD with Single Level Cell (SLC) Flash memory supports PATA (ZIF-type) interface and has a maximum reading speed of 120MB/s and writing speed of 100MB/s, which is more than 6 times faster than the current 1.8 inch HDD. Therefore when its used in laptop PC and UMPC, it delivers much faster performance than desktop. Mtron also released 1.8 Inch SSD with Multi Level Cell (MLC) Flash memory, which provides maximum memory capacity of up to 128 GB along with a maximum reading speed of 110 MB/s and writing speed of 40MB/s.
Mtron touts the ability of the SSD drive to withstand shock, vibration and consume nearly 50% less power than a conventional hard drive.
The introduction of this 1.8" SSD drive raises the maximum capacity of the MacBook Air, which is currently limited to 80GB due to physical size constraints. This SSD drive would have to come in a 5mm height to fit in the Air, but this dimension is not specified in the press release. Pricing is also not specified and SSD drives typically carry a much higher premium than traditional hard drives.
