Micron Claims Fastest SSD; Buys AI Startup

Micron Technology introduced what it claims is the world's fastest solid state drive (SSD), and also announced the acquisition of FWDNXT (pronounced "forward next"), a startup that specializes in neural networking with a product lineup that includes a series of inference engine modules based on Xilinx FPGAs. The announcements were made at the Micron Insight conference held at Pier 27 in San Francisco. The conference focused on how to accelerate intelligent systems by improving data access and analysis speed in edge devices. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in his opening remarks at the conference that the company shipped 6 million wafers (including DRAM/3D XPoint/NAND) in fiscal year 2019, which translates into roughly 3 billion solutions for game systems, mobile phones, Internet of things applications, smart factories, and more. Sumit Sadana, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Micron, then unveiled several heavyweight products at the conference.