Fifty seven years ago today, the US Patent Office granted a patent for a new memory technology to IBM. This approach used a single transistor and a single capacitor as an alternative to SRAM which is built with a six-transistor cell. This Memory Guy blog post was written to commemorate that milestone.
Since the goal of a semiconductor is to squeeze as many functions as possible onto a single silicon chip, the new Continue reading “Remembering Bob Dennard, the Father of DRAM”
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”
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”
At the ISSCC conference last month Kioxia and Sandisk provided more details on the BiCS8 NAND flash chip that the companies will be shipping soon.
BiCS8 is the next generation of the two companies’ jointly-developed 3D NAND technology. Although today’s volume product is very different from Toshiba’s originally-disclosed BiCS process, so far the process changes have largely been Continue reading “The Sandisk/Kioxia BiCS8 NAND”
If you didn’t realize that Kioxia finally held its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on 16 December, 2024, you are in the majority. The IPO was held a couple of days before initially planned on the Tokyo Stock Exchange where Kioxia is traded as number 285a.
The event was barely covered by the press outside of Japan, and Kioxia only Continue reading “Kioxia’s Barely-Noticed IPO”
(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?”
Those who regularly read The Memory Guy’s blog posts know that I am concerned that today’s boom will result in a collapse sometime in the near future. With that in mind, my reporting of August’s record-breaking revenue number won’t be treated as a welcome success, but as a good thing to be viewed with some caution.
First the news: The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that August semiconductor revenues, as reported in the WSTS 3MMA number (3-month moving average) were Continue reading “Should We Be Excited About August’s Record-Breaking Semiconductor Market?”
(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”
One of the biggest markets fueling today’s memory growth is hyperscale computing. Not just hyperscale computing the way that it’s always been, but hyperscale computing fueled by AI spending.
The Memory Guy decided that this might be a good time to investigate whether a market anomaly might be driving this growth — something that could change at some point to cause Continue reading “Hyperscaler CapEx Significantly Off-Trend”
(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?”
