Micron Reveals 232-layer NAND Flash During Investors Day

[TheLostSwede]

During its investors day yesterday, Micron revealed its 232-layer NAND Flash, which for now is the most advanced of its kind. Micron is using what the company calls CMOS Under Array or CuA as the platform to build a pair of TLC stacks on top of, for a total of 232-layers. Each stacked NAND Flash chip is said to have a capacity of 1 Terabit, or 128 GB, so we're not seeing any new capacity increases at this point, compared to the competition, but Micron is promising increased bandwidth node-over-node, so we might end up seeing better performance compared to its competitors. The new NAND Flash is supposed to be optimised for SSDs and other "managed" NAND, such as eMMC and UFS.

Micron also revealed an updated NAND Flash roadmap, with the company planning even more 200 plus layer products before moving to 300 and 400-layer stacks of NAND in the future. The 300-layer stacks are already under structural development, whereas the 400-layer products are still in the very early stages of research. The new 232-layer products are said to go into mass production towards the end of this year, so we shouldn't expect to see products based on Micron's 232-layer NAND until sometime in 2023.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[ZoneDymo]

thats a lot of dama....layers

 

[Denver]

Nobody launches something that fixes the problems that really matter, like reduced lifespan with increased density...

The way things are developing, the products are getting worse, not better.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Nobody launches something that fixes the problems that really matter, like reduced lifespan with increased density...

The way things are developing, the products are getting worse, not better.

Sorry, but how is this worse than current 3D TLC NAND?
It's just taller stacks of the same kind of NAND.
Please share if you have some insight into how this makes for poorer lifespan.

 

[mashie]

Maybe one day the increased numbers of layers will result in higher capacities.

 

[Denver]

Sorry, but how is this worse than current 3D TLC NAND?
It's just taller stacks of the same kind of NAND.
Please share if you have some insight into how this makes for poorer lifespan.

It doesn't improve the lifespan or the prices, they talk about increasing density but SSDs are still almost the same prices compared to those based on regular TCL. QCL is even worse.

Am I the only one who wants to see a viable SSD in price and performance with an SLC level lifespan?

 

[chrcoluk]

I expect more stack means lower manufacturing cost.

From the point of view of the manufacturer, SSD's sell like hot cakes at current prices, they have a clear advantage over spindles, so there is no market need to lower the cost per gigabyte faster.

They can also make higher capacity SSD's than they do now but I think they are waiting for a bigger market to justify it and to try and keep enterprise user's from using consumer products.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It doesn't improve the lifespan or the prices, they talk about increasing density but SSDs are still almost the same prices compared to those based on regular TCL. QCL is even worse.

Am I the only one who wants to see a viable SSD in price and performance with an SLC level lifespan?

Sorry what? So you expect brand new products to cost less than currently selling products on the day they enter the market and you want SLC lifespan in products that should ideally be free. Did I get that right? SSDs have pretty much never been as cheap as they are right now, yet you're complaining that they're too expensive. Seriously, some people...

I expect more stack means lower manufacturing cost.

Not initially, as it's tricky to produce stacked NAND, but over time, yes that's the goal.

From the point of view of the manufacturer, SSD's sell like hot cakes at current prices, they have a clear advantage over spindles, so there is no market need to lower the cost per gigabyte faster.

Yet the price is still dropping on what seems to be a monthly basis. Maybe not by much, but a few bucks here and there.

They can also make higher capacity SSD's than they do now but I think they are waiting for a bigger market to justify it and to try and keep enterprise user's from using consumer products.

But most people are clearly not willing to pay for them so...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Sorry what? So you expect brand new products to cost less than currently selling products on the day they enter the market and you want SLC lifespan in products that should ideally be free. Did I get that right? SSDs have pretty much never been as cheap as they are right now, yet you're complaining that they're too expensive. Seriously, some people...

reminds me of that AMD thread with the same complaints.

I am associating more layers with higher lifetimes, I hope thats what the increase in layers develop into.

 

[Denver]

Sorry what? So you expect brand new products to cost less than currently selling products on the day they enter the market and you want SLC lifespan in products that should ideally be free. Did I get that right? SSDs have pretty much never been as cheap as they are right now, yet you're complaining that they're too expensive. Seriously, some people...


Not initially, as it's tricky to produce stacked NAND, but over time, yes that's the goal.

Yet the price is still dropping on what seems to be a monthly basis. Maybe not by much, but a few bucks here and there.

But most people are clearly not willing to pay for them so...

They are cheaper using TCL at the cost of reduced lifespan, but still more expensive and less secure than an HDD.

While games are 3-4x larger than in the past this price reduction is offset by the fact that you need to buy 3-4x larger capacity storage to meet your needs.
Yes, I'm sorry but I hope someone makes better products, not the same or worse.

 

[TheLostSwede]

They are cheaper using TCL at the cost of reduced lifespan, but still more expensive and less secure than an HDD.

While games are 3-4x larger than in the past this price reduction is offset by the fact that you need to buy 3-4x larger capacity storage to meet your needs.
Yes, I'm sorry but I hope someone makes better products, not the same or worse.

Sorry, but did you only find out today that pretty much all SSDs are based on 3D TLC these days?
SLC hasn't been a thing in the consumer space for over a decade.

How are SSDs less secure than HDDs? Please provide an example, otherwise it's just your opinion.
SLC or TLC isn't going to help with keeping your data secure, either can fail just as easily.
No storage medium is secure, as such a thing hasn't been invented yet, but there are apparently companies working on allow for data storage in diamond wafers, but I guess you'll complain the price per exabyte will be too high.

Maybe you should go complain to the game developers then? As your issue is clearly not with the storage device makers, or are you suggesting they're colluding and refusing to release cheaper/larger storage devices for you to store your games on?

I guess you don't remember that MLC SSDs topped out at 1 TB and would set you back a small fortune. The 512 GB version of the Samsung 970 Pro was US$229, you get a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 drive for that kind of money today and you can get a 2 TB PCIe 3.0 drive for that kind of money, but no, it's still too expensive for some.

Here's a suggestion, if you're not happy with what's out there, how about you put in some money, start your own company and invent something faster, cheaper, better?

 

[Denver]

Sorry, but did you only find out today that pretty much all SSDs are based on 3D TLC these days?
SLC hasn't been a thing in the consumer space for over a decade.

How are SSDs less secure than HDDs? Please provide an example, otherwise it's just your opinion.
SLC or TLC isn't going to help with keeping your data secure, either can fail just as easily.
No storage medium is secure, as such a thing hasn't been invented yet, but there are apparently companies working on allow for data storage in diamond wafers, but I guess you'll complain the price per exabyte will be too high.

Maybe you should go complain to the game developers then? As your issue is clearly not with the storage device makers, or are you suggesting they're colluding and refusing to release cheaper/larger storage devices for you to store your games on?

I guess you don't remember that MLC SSDs topped out at 1 TB and would set you back a small fortune. The 512 GB version of the Samsung 970 Pro was US$229, you get a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 drive for that kind of money today and you can get a 2 TB PCIe 3.0 drive for that kind of money, but no, it's still too expensive for some.

Here's a suggestion, if you're not happy with what's out there, how about you put in some money, start your own company and invent something faster, cheaper, better?

Are you kidding ? On HDD you still have a chance to recover files, on a fault SSD you just lose the files. I could even buy two 4TB HDDs (less than $100 each), and leave one as a raid backup and it would still be cheaper than buying a single 4TB SSD. The downsides you know, the performance.

The size of games is a side effect of advancing quality and it will get worse, it also demands bigger and faster storage, so there are two problems. When a problem is created, someone is expected to create a solution to the problem.

In the meantime, unfortunately some consumers are happy to defend the stagnation of technology, I hope they're at least getting paid for it. And no, no one here is going to create a company from scratch whenever there is stagnation or problems in some industry. This is ridiculous, even if it's just a joke.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Are you kidding ? On HDD you still have a chance to recover files, on a fault SSD you just lose the files. I could even buy two 4TB HDDs (less than $100 each), and leave one as a raid backup and it would still be cheaper than buying a single 4TB SSD. The downsides you know, the performance.

Sorry, but what does that have to do with security? A failed drive is a failed drive.

The size of games is a side effect of advancing quality and it will get worse, it also demands bigger and faster storage, so there are two problems. When a problem is created, someone is expected to create a solution to the problem.

Wow, just wow, glad to know that you put that much trust in "someone" to solve all your problems in life. Your life must be constant disappointment.

In the meantime, unfortunately some consumers are happy to defend the stagnation of technology, I hope they're at least getting paid for it. And no, no one here is going to create a company from scratch whenever there is stagnation or problems in some industry. This is ridiculous, even if it's just a joke.

lol, whatever dude, I guess we see things differently, but I haven't been writing about tech for almost 20 years and haven't worked with tech my entire working life. Stagnation... Yeah, sure, I guess you've never used 5.25" floppy drives if you call the fact that you can't get a 4 TB SSD for $40 stagnation...

You might also want to have words with someone like Elon Musk, he didn't start an electric car company, nor a space business due to stagnation problems...

 

[Denver]

Sorry, but what does that have to do with security? A failed drive is a failed drive.

Wow, just wow, glad to know that you put that much trust in "someone" to solve all your problems in life. Your life must be constant disappointment.

lol, whatever dude, I guess we see things differently, but I haven't been writing about tech for almost 20 years and haven't worked with tech my entire working life. Stagnation... Yeah, sure, I guess you've never used 5.25" floppy drives if you call the fact that you can't get a 4 TB SSD for $40 stagnation...

You might also want to have words with someone like Elon Musk, he didn't start an electric car company, nor a space business due to stagnation problems...

Comparing life and personal problems with the technology problems of billionaire companies, this is ridiculous. I give up, this discussion is going nowhere, you refuse to see the obvious.
For someone who claims to be so old, I was expecting a more mature point of view, I think soon you will be quite happy putting 1-2 games on 1TB SSD.

Tesla has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. But I would easily bet against a company that offers absolutely nothing really innovative.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Comparing life and personal problems with the technology problems of billionaire companies, this is ridiculous. I give up, this discussion is going nowhere, you refuse to see the obvious.
For someone who claims to be so old, I was expecting a more mature point of view, I think soon you will be quite happy putting 1-2 games on 1TB SSD.

I have a 2 TB SSD for my games, but whatever.

Tesla has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. But I would easily bet against a company that offers absolutely nothing really innovative.

No? So new, innovative companies that no-one else had the foresight to start don't matter in a discussion about technology where you're accusing "billionaire companies" of not doing enough to bring better tech to you. Are you even reading your own reasoning here?

I'm a realist and we've gone from a time when it was reasonably affordable to come up with new, better, faster tech, to a point where even a small step costs insane amount of money to accomplish. If you're not willing to understand that part, there's nothing I can do to help.

Oh and I just spotted a 2 TB NVMe drive for about $134 here, not a great drive, but even so. But no, SSDs are not getting more affordable...

 

[trparky]

They are cheaper using TCL at the cost of reduced lifespan

And yet I have three TLC-based SSDs in my computer, two of which I bought over three years ago, and yet they're still working just fine. One of them, a Samsung 970 EVO has had 63.3 TBs of data written to it, and it has a whopping 96% of its total lifespan left. I don't know about you but that's damn good. What more do you want dude?

 

[R-T-B]

Nobody launches something that fixes the problems that really matter, like reduced lifespan with increased density...

The way things are developing, the products are getting worse, not better.

3D nand tlc is loads better longevity wise than planar. Not sure what you are thinking here, we ARE moving forward.

 

[trparky]

Based upon some very crude math, I figured that I could write another 6,076.8 TBs (or 48.6 PBs) until that 970 EVO is dead. Again, I bring forward the question... What more do you want dude?

 

[R0H1T]

What more do you want dude?

I want it free, probably like the other guy

 

[Valantar]

It doesn't improve the lifespan or the prices, they talk about increasing density but SSDs are still almost the same prices compared to those based on regular TCL. QCL is even worse.

Am I the only one who wants to see a viable SSD in price and performance with an SLC level lifespan?

Current TLC has perfectly fine endurance, you're making way more out of this than is warranted. Especially with effective pseudo-SLC caching, write amplification is near nonexistent which extends endurance further, while performance is also good.

If you want SLC, you need to be ready to pay (at least) 3x as much per capacity, simply because capacity per die will be exactly ⅓rd and no more. That's the only difference between SLC and TLC after all. It is a logical and physical impossibility for SLC or MLC to match TLC on price, everything else being equal.

As for complaining that SSDs are more expensive per capacity than HDDs: one has been on the market a rough decade, the other more like five (though admittedly in very limited use early on). What do you expect in terms of economies of scale and optimization? HDDs are also fundamentally much cheaper to produce per capacity (but not in base cost due to material/component needs - motors are expensive, for example). Also, SSDs deliver many times the performance. Isn't that worth paying for?

My first SSD was an 80GB Intel drive in... 2008? And even that was MLC, not SLC. SLC drives have never been viable for consumer sales due to the cost.

And, crucially, current TLC drives are very reliable, and do not wear out quickly.

3D nand tlc is loads better longevity wise than planar. Not sure what you are thinking here, we ARE moving forward.

Yeah, doesn't 3D TLC use significantly larger cells than planar, as they no longer need to pack them as densely as possible?

 

[trparky]

Yeah, doesn't 3D TLC use significantly larger cells than planar, as they no longer need to pack them as densely as possible?

That was the one case where using a larger fab node resulted in better quality.

 

[Valantar]

That was the one case where using a larger fab node resulted in better quality.

Yep, that's what I thought. NAND doesn't like being tiny, so layers > density.

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah, doesn't 3D TLC use significantly larger cells than planar, as they no longer need to pack them as densely as possible?

Yes. This is also why the longevity improves.

 

[mechtech]

In all honesty I wouldn't mind seem more 2-bit MLC and even SLC more common and available in the consumer space again like when SSDs first came out.

It would be nice to have the option to get a 64GB (or larger) SLC drive for a scratch drive or something that's going to take a ton of abusive writes and still stand up.

 

[TheLostSwede]

In all honesty I wouldn't mind seem more 2-bit MLC and even SLC more common and available in the consumer space again like when SSDs first came out.

It would be nice to have the option to get a 64GB (or larger) SLC drive for a scratch drive or something that's going to take a ton of abusive writes and still stand up.

Are you willing to pay the price though?

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Virtium/VSFPM8PC064G?qs=mAH9sUMRCtuAyyXuuQeUng%3D%3D

SFSA128GM1AA4TO-I-NC-616-STD Swissbit | Memory Cards, Modules | DigiKey

Order today, ships today. SFSA128GM1AA4TO-I-NC-616-STD – Solid State Drive (SSD) FLASH - NAND (SLC) 128GB SATA III M.2 Module 3.3V from Swissbit. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.com