Micron Innovations Blog » NAND Concepts

Will the Cloud Drive more Personal Storage?

Kevin Kilbuck — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:26:47 +0000

The Consumer Electronics Show is a great place to pick up on technology trends; this year, everyone was talking about mobile devices and streaming content from the cloud. We’ve been fielding questions about the cloud for a while from people who assume it will mean a smaller memory market as smartphones and tablets scale back on their need for storage (or at least that the NAND will move from personal devices into the servers inside the cloud).

But we see the cloud as a positive driver for storage both in servers and on devices, and we’re not the only ones. See why one software company thinks that better access to the cloud will mean that you’ll want even more high-performance storage on your mobile device—not less.

Controlling Complexity with ClearNAND™ Flash

Mike Seibert — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:37:04 +0000

One of our existing NAND customers, Maryland-based Data Design Corporation, specializes in custom electronic designs for national laboratories, defense, and industrial applications. Their engineers had a great idea for a custom PCIe storage device. But they had a problem—standard NAND ECC requirements have been changing with each generation resulting in expensive reengineering of the NAND controller in order to keep pace with the most advanced NAND.

Watch our interview with Data Design’s Director of Engineering Richard Baum to see the high-performance SSD they brought to market with our Enhanced ClearNAND™ Flash. Its built-in ECC delivered exactly what they were looking for—smaller footprint, lower power consumption, and 70% less controller complexity.

Or, read the case study.

A Trillion Bits on a Fingertip

Mike Seibert — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:00:06 +0000

A terabit in a single NAND package—that’s what our latest NAND will deliver. I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding how these numbers relate to the real world, though. Our new 128Gb 20nm device can store a terabit of data in a single package of just 8 die, but what does that mean?

To put it in perspective, a terabit (128GB) is a HUGE amount of data—according to Tech Target, it’s more than enough to store all the contents of an entire library floor of academic journals (100GB)—reams of information all packed within a single NAND package.

But you’re probably not storing thousands of academic journals. For you and me it means more storage for downloaded movies, music, e-books, and photos. You probably don’t know how many NAND die are in your phone or SSD, but you do know how much it cost, which is what process improvements like these provide—more cost-effective, better storage solutions. Intel and Micron continue to lead the industry in moving innovative new NAND solutions to production.

Let me know what you think of our latest 20nm NAND by posting a comment below, or read more about our technology leadership on our Process Innovations page.

Glen Hawk Interview from FMS

Alyson Outen — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:48:45 +0000

I had a chance to sit down with Glen Hawk—our VP of NAND solutions—at this year’s Flash Memory Summit to talk about the conference and his keynote there. He had a lot to share about the growth of NAND, it’s place in a cloud-computing world, and where the technology is headed. His keynote also featured some great vignettes with several Micron customers who are using NAND in interesting new ways. If you weren’t one of the thousand who got to see the keynote in person, the video interview below should give you a good summary.

Award-Winning NAND

Alyson Outen — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:41:54 +0000

More exciting news from FMS: Yesterday Micron and Intel received the award for the Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology at the Flash Memory Summit. The award recognizes our industry-leading 20nm NAND process technology.

Manufactured by our joint venture, IM Flash Technologies, the new device is a breakthrough in NAND process and design, providing approximately 50% more capacity than current technology And, for those who enjoy the gory details, the new 20nm 8GB device measures just 118mm2!

If you’re interested in reading more about our leading-edge NAND process technology, see our Innovations page.

It’s Time for the Flash Memory Summit!

Alyson Outen — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:43:34 +0000

I’m at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California where final preparations are underway on the tradeshow floor. We’re a long-time participant in the Summit and are really excited for the opportunity to speak and meet with our partners and peers in the industry.

On Tuesday, Micron’s Vice President of NAND Solutions Group, Glen Hawk, gave a keynote address to an overflowing crowd of nearly 1,000 tech industry enthusiasts. In his speech on the “Alchemy of NAND Flash” Hawk highlighted Micron’s leadership in cutting-edge technology and his optimism about our ability to scale the infamous memory wall.

“At Micron we plan on jumping right over the wall. We’re confident in the future because we’re making [the future],” said Glen Hawk.

Along with Hawk’s keynote address, Micron is engaged in 20 speaking opportunities over the duration of the three-day conference. Session topics range from Solid State Drives (SSDs) to NAND Interface Solutions and to The Future of Phase Change Memory.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog post featuring my interview with Micron’s Vice President of NAND Solutions, Glenn Hawk.

20nm NAND—Smaller and Better

Kevin Kilbuck — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:49:37 +0000

Today, Intel and Micron announced our latest advancement of NAND process technology—20nm NAND. Our new device crams 8GB into about 40% less die area than our already-tiny 25nm NAND. That’s small enough to make it the first 8GB MLC die that can fit into a microSD® card. You can see the difference in the photo below. This shrink is well ahead of our competitors (some have just announced production on a process equivalent to our 25nm) and keeps us solidly in the leadership position for NAND development. But the really remarkable thing is what we’ve been able do for quality and endurance. To understand why this is significant, you need to know a little about NAND scaling.

Process shrinks require tinier, more-complex cells, which translates to lower performance and endurance. This has been true for generations of NAND process shrinks and is more or less a byproduct of the laws of physics. We’re approaching atomic dimensions (a single copper atom is .25nm), and it takes some extraordinary science to design circuits that can hold electrical charges at this scale.

With this new design however, we included some innovative new technology that will allow our 20nm NAND to eventually hit the same endurance and performance specifications as our current-generation NAND (25nm). We’re also continuing our pattern of keeping ECC (error correction code) requirements a generation lower than the competition. Our 20nm NAND will have similar ECC requirements to some competitors’ current NAND products, meaning they won’t require more ECC from the controller.

These are significant advancements that helps provide a viable path for NAND scaling and development. The end result is a great new product that’s going to enable even more innovation in mobile storage applications.

ClearNAND™ Flash–Another Reason NAND is the Best Nonvolatile Memory Available

Kevin Kilbuck — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:20:59 +0000

It’s a new NAND technology that’s going to enable new applications and continued NAND scaling. The difference is in the way it handles ECC. Get the details about what it is, how it works, and why it’s advantageous in this whiteboard overview.

Trends in Flash Memory–The Future is Clear

Kirstin Bordner — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:17:24 +0000

We recently sat down with Glen Hawk, our VP of NAND Solutions, to talk about the company’s direction and vision for NAND Flash memory. It’s a candid look at the challenges that NAND technology presents and our response in terms of developing NAND solutions that can go the distance and continue to provide advantages and create exciting possibilities well into the future.

Hitachi-LG Data Storage Uses Micron 25nm NAND in New Hybrid Drive

Kirstin Bordner — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:50:52 +0000

Micron today announced that our 25nm NAND is being used in a new all-in-one storage and media solution from Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS), called Hybrid Drive. The innovations Micron has made in NAND flash memory continue to spark new and compelling end-product designs from our customers – the Hybrid Drive being one of them. We wanted to learn a bit more about the Hybrid Drive, so we asked a few questions to HLDS’ Jack Lee, Senior Manager, and here’s what he had to say:

What exactly is a Hybrid Drive? How does this new product fit into the HLDS product line?
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. It’s primarily targeted at the thin & light notebook PC applications. In standard notebook applications where there is still an HDD or SSD used for longer-term storage, the Hybrid Drive would be used for caching and launching applications, which provides an increase in system performance.

What are the performance advantages of the Hybrid Drive?
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, we are offering high-quality DVD media management.

Why did you choose Micron’s 25nm NAND?
The high-performance, high-capacity and small form factor of Micron’s 25nm NAND played an important role in design of the Hybrid Drive.

Were there specific market demands or other drivers that necessitated this design approach?
The primary market driver was improving PC performance without disrupting current motherboard designs. With this in mind, we focused on creating a solution that provided an all-in-one storage and media/Blu-Ray solution in an ODD form factor.