Intel (www.intel.com) is shipping its first solid-state drive (SSD) using industry leading 20-nanometer (nm) NAND flash memory process.

The new Intel Solid-State Drive 335 Series (Intel SSD 335 Series) uses the smallest, most efficient multi-level cell NAND flash on the market, allowing Intel to advance its 300 Series client/consumer SSDs to the next-generation technology, according to Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager for the Intel Non-Volative Memory Solutions Group. The Intel SSD 335 Series is a 6 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) SATA drive that can replace a traditional, slower operating hard disk drive (HDD) for faster access to files and programs.

The Intel SSD 335 comes in a 240GB capacity that performs 500 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) sequential reads and 450 MB/s sequential writes. The product is Intel’s first SSD to use the latest 20nm NAND flash memory jointly developed by IM Flash Technologies (IMFT).