Seagate Technology and DensBits Technologies have announced today a strategic agreement for the development of low-cost, high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for the consumer and enterprise markets. The future SSDs will use 2 bits per cell and 3 bits per cell NAND flash memory produced using 10nm-class process technologies. Seagate hopes that DensBits SSD controller tech will help to considerably improve reliability of the drives.

“Seagate is excited to be working with the talented DensBits team and believes we have a significant opportunity with our new strategic relationship to extend our leadership into the SSD market,” said Rocky Pimentel, chief sales and marketing officer of Seagate.

Seagate and DensBits are joining forces, to develop future products that are intended to provide customers with significant cost savings, extremely high reliability, and unparalleled performance. Under the agreement, DensBits’ Memory Modem controller technology will be integrated with Seagate’s various storage technologies to power a wide range of consumer and enterprise applications including 3 bits/cell (TLC) 10nm-class NAND flash-based consumer-grade SSD, and 2 bits/cell (MLC) 10nm-nm NAND flash-based enterprise-grade SSD.

Previously Seagate was pretty skeptic about prospects of solid-state drives for consumers as their cost-per-gigabyte was too high for the mass market. Perhaps, Seagate believes that thanks to TLC NAND flash produced using 10nm-class process technologies, which is 30% cheaper than comparable MLC NAND, costs of SSDs will get dramatically lower, which will make them more popular for the mass consumer market.

Seagate believes that DensBits Memory Modem controllers will ensure high reliability of TLC and MLC NAND flash-based SSDs. At least, DensBits claims that Memory Modem technology ensures that TLC NAND flash may become as reliable as MLC NAND flash.

“We are very excited at the opportunity of collaborating with Seagate. This is yet another testament to our technology leadership, and we strongly believe that the coupling between DensBits’ unique Memory Modem controller technology and Seagate’s exceptional storage capabilities across the board could truly disrupt the industry,” said Ilan Hen, chairman and CEO of DensBits.

In conjunction with the agreement, Seagate has made an undisclosed equity investment in DensBits.

Tags: Seagate, DensBits, 10nm, TLC, MLC, NAND, Flash, SSD