Solid state drive (SSD) technology may not have taken the consumer electronics market by storm like some of the other devices and products released but research divisions at Toshiba and Keio University which is located in Tokyo are looking to change this.

According to information released, it appears that researchers have developed technologies to make much smaller SSD drives, some 90% smaller as well as much more energy efficient, reducing energy needs by about 70%. Along with these two benefits, the new SSDs are based on radio communication which has the added advantage of dropping development costs which in turn will further reduce costs when the new technology enters the marketplace.

So far, Tadahiro Kuroda from Keio University as well as others involved with the project believe the process will reduce the dimensions of a 1TB SSD down to the size of a small postage stamp. Additionally, the device contains one controller chip, a 128 NAND flash memory chip and supports data transfer speeds up to 2Gbps.

The first units will roll out no earlier then 2012 and by then, development processes are likely to improve further which could see the units ship with even better specifications including even faster data transfer speeds. There is no estimate on how much the SSD chips will likely retail for.

Via: TechChee