Micron Technology today announced that Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc. (HLDS) has selected Micron's 25-nanometer (nm) NAND as the flash memory solution for its new hybrid optical disk drive (ODD). The Hybrid Drive is an Optical Disc Drive (ODD) with embedded NAND Flash memory, providing a combined storage configuration of an ODD+HDD+Flash Storage in the same platform architecture.

The new HLDS Hybrid Drive with Micron's 25nm NAND technology provides a mass storage and removable media solution for PCs, DVD players and Blu-ray products.

Micron's 25nm NAND process technology delivers 8-gigabytes (GB) of storage in a single device, enabling new applications that require high capacity storage in space constrained designs. The initial portfolio of HLDS Hybrid Drives will be offered in a range of embedded flash memory capacities including 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. Higher NAND capacities of the Hybrid Drive will be available in future versions.

The Hybrid Drive provides approximately a 50 to 70 percent performance improvement for PC booting, multitasking and application loading times when compared to a standalone HDD. And within the same solution, HLDS is offering high-quality DVD media management.

The HLDS Hybrid Drive is targeted at thin and light notebooks that traditionally had space for one drive, and is also ideal for client applications, where a hard drive or solid-state drive would be used for long-term storage. In these applications, the Hybrid Drive would be used for caching and launching applications, providing an improvement in system performance, including faster boot times.

HLDS will be demonstrating the Hybrid Drive using Micron's 25nm NAND at CEATEC, October 5- 9 in Japan, Booth #1A01, Home & Personal Zone, Hall 1.