SNIA CXL Webinar Available On-Demand

The CXL Logo and the SNIA Logo one over the other.On April 2nd SNIA hosted a CXL webinar to discuss where the technology currently is, and where it is headed.  The Memory Guy was honored to play a part in this event.

Other speakers were Arthur Sainio, on behalf of SNIA, Mahesh Natu, on behalf of the CXL Consortium, and Torry Steed of SMART Modular, a company that has been one of the earliest providers of Continue reading “SNIA CXL Webinar Available On-Demand”

AI xPUs to be Cooled by HBM

Photo on a dark background of the edge of a die glowing from heat, while above it are ice crystals.. Same as next photo, but from farther away.High-end xPUs (GPUs, TPUs, and other AI processors) use HBM memories to get the absolute highest memory bandwidth for training the Large Language Models (LLMs) used in today’s generative AI systems.  These processors, used in the thousands by hyperscale datacenters, can consume a kilowatt each.  As a result, they must dissipate a phenomenal quantity of heat.  This has become a very challenging problem for these datacenters.  (The Memory Guy should mention here that Objective Analysis plans soon to release a report on HBM.)

The problem has attracted the attention of Continue reading “AI xPUs to be Cooled by HBM”

3D NAND: Who Will Make It and When?

SK hynix 3D NAND Cross Section(The following is an update of a post that originally ran on 13 December 2013.  It was republished in 2024 as a part of a series on The Memory Guy blog to honor the 3D NAND inventors who have received the 2024 FMS Lifetime Achievement Award.)


This series, originally run in 2013, has looked at 3D NAND technology in a good deal of technical depth.  At that time, the last question to be answered centered around the players and the timing that the technology would Continue reading “3D NAND: Who Will Make It and When?”

3D NAND’s Impact on the Equipment Market

Costs to Migrate to Next Lithography Node - Applied Materials (click to enlarge)(The following is an update of a post that originally ran on 6 December 2013.  It was republished in 2024 as a part of a series on The Memory Guy blog to honor the 3D NAND inventors who have received the 2024 FMS Lifetime Achievement Award.)


A very unusual side effect of the move to 3D NAND was Continue reading “3D NAND’s Impact on the Equipment Market”

How Do You Erase and Program 3D NAND?

How FN Tunneling Works. Cross section of a floating gate transistor. A word balloon on the control gate says "Strong Positive Potential", and word balloons on the source and drain say "Strong Negative Potential." Arrows show how the current would travel from the source and drain through the tunnel oxide to leave electrons on the floating gate, indicated by little circles, as the current tried to reach the control gate.

(The following is an update of a post that originally ran on 29 November 2013.  It was republished in 2024 as a part of a series to honor the 3D NAND inventors who have received the 2024 FMS Lifetime Achievement Award.)


Some of my readers have asked: “How is 3D NAND Continue reading “How Do You Erase and Program 3D NAND?”

3D NAND: Benefits of Charge Traps over Floating Gates

Real California Cheese Seal(The following is an update of a post that originally ran on 22 November 2013.  It was republished in 2024 as a part of a series to honor the 3D NAND inventors who have received the 2024 FMS Lifetime Achievement Award.)


A prior post in this series (3D NAND: Making a Vertical String) discussed the difficulties of Continue reading “3D NAND: Benefits of Charge Traps over Floating Gates”

Why is Everyone Jumping Into the HBM Market?

Close-up of a part of the market share chart shown in full later in the blog postAll of a sudden HBM is the leading topic of conversation.  Why is that?  A good number of people ask the Memory Guy that question.

Sure, the recent explosion of generative AI has been the key part of that interest, but there was even more that encouraged competition into this market at an accelerated pace.  The simple answer is that HBM, a DRAM used in AI applications, remained Continue reading “Why is Everyone Jumping Into the HBM Market?”

3D NAND: How do You Access the Control Gates?

Samsung's TCAT NAND Flash Wordline COnnections

(The following is an update of a post that originally ran on 8 November 2013.  It was republished in 2024 as a part of a series to honor the 3D NAND inventors who have received the 2024 FMS Lifetime Achievement Award.)


One of the thornier problems Continue reading “3D NAND: How do You Access the Control Gates?”

Samsung’s New 280-Layer QLC NAND

Photo of two ball-grid array (BGA) packagesSamsung has just announced a QLC version of the 3D NAND that the company has calls its 9th-generation V-NAND.  This follows the April announcement that its TLC version of the 280-layer 9th-generation device was in volume production.

Naming the product a “Memory Solution for AI Era”, Samsung tells us that Continue reading “Samsung’s New 280-Layer QLC NAND”

An Alternative Kind of Vertical 3D NAND String

Samsung's TCAT 3D NAND flash(The following is an update of a post that originally ran on 8 November 2013.  It was republished in 2024 as a part of a series to honor the 3D NAND inventors who have received the 2024 FMS Lifetime Achievement Award.)


My prior 3D NAND post explained how Toshiba’s BiCS cell works, using a silicon nitride charge trap to substitute for a floating gate.  This post will look at an alternative Continue reading “An Alternative Kind of Vertical 3D NAND String”

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