Intel - The Memory Guy Blog

DensBits – Making TLC Act Like MLC

DensBits, an Israeli start-up, has introduced a new technology and a new product today. The company’s new eMMC controller, the DB3610, embodies DensBits’ “Memory Modem” technology, which is a blend of ECC, DSP, and flash management that the company says can give TLC flash endurance superior to that of MLC flash with performance nearly as good as competing controllers can provide with MLC.

That’s a big claim!

DensBits’ Memory Modem views NAND flash as a noisy communications channel, using those algorithms developed to support deep Continue reading “DensBits – Making TLC Act Like MLC”

How Cheap is Flash?

The Memory Guy was a little surprised to see the advertisement in this post’s graphic. It was from an April 8 newspaper ad for Fry’s Electronics.

It’s a little early to see NAND selling for this little: The original price of $21.99 for a 32GB USB flash drive comes to $0.69/GB, and the price after the rebate of $16.99 means that the price per gigabyte of the flash is only $0.53!

At the time the lowest spot market pricing for MLC flash on the InSpectrum spot price website was $0.53, and $0.47 for TLC. According to DRAMeXchange MLC is selling for as little as $0.48.

That’s not a lot of margin for Patriot or Fry’s when you add in the cost of t Continue reading “How Cheap is Flash?”

NAND Flash Turns 25!

On April 3 Toshiba celebrated the 25th anniversary of NAND flash. The technology, developed by Toshiba researcher Fujio Masuoka, was not expected to succeed, as explained in Eli Harrari’s keynote for ISSCC in February.

Toshiba said in a release that the company’s “commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the invention of NAND flash will continue throughout 2012,” and will include “notable industry events and consumer participation.”

There is certainly reason to celebrate. This technology has grown faster than any semiconductor market in history, Continue reading “NAND Flash Turns 25!”

Intel Sells NAND Assets

Today Intel divested itself of a portion of the assets of IMFT, the joint venture NAND flash manufacturing arm it shares with Micron Technology. This is an effort by Intel to groom the business to better suit Intel’s evolving vision of its role in the NAND flash business.

Objective Analysis issued an Alert to our clients giving the “What, When, Why, and Where” of this deal. The Alert can be downloaded for free from the Objective Analysis Reports page.

Inside SanDisk’s & Toshiba’s New 128Gb NAND Chip

One memory chip was so important that it was presented three times at this week’s International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) and that was the Toshiba/SanDisk 128Gb NAND flash. This chip was shown by Eli Harari in Monday’s keynote, then was featured twice in the Wednesday afternoon Nonvolatile Memories session – once by Toshiba and once by SanDisk.

The NAND chip, measuring 170.6mm², is said by both companies to be the densest NAND available. Compared to the Intel/Micron 64Gb 20nm NAND at 118mm², the device gives twice the bits in a 45% larger die area, so the companies’ claim rings true, since the only other NAND makers: Samsung and Hynix, have processes that fall far behind at 27nm and 26nm respectively.

Continue reading “Inside SanDisk’s & Toshiba’s New 128Gb NAND Chip”

New NAND Player: Macronix

Macronix, a company known for its leadership in mask ROMs and low-density NOR flash has just entered the NAND flash market. This adds a new player to a very small pool of competitors: Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, Hynix, Intel, and Micron.

The company’s first NAND products are SLC chips of two densities: 512Mb and 1Gb. Compare this to the offerings of the market’s other participants which range up to 256Gb. Spot price tracker InSpectrum doesn’t even track pricing of densities below 4Gb!

There still seems to be a good market for these low-density parts: According to WSTS Continue reading “New NAND Player: Macronix”

A Change to Computing Architecture?

I got a phone call yesterday from Russell Fish of Venray Technology. He wanted to talk about how and why computer architecture is destined for a change.

I will disclose right up front that he and I were college classmates. Even so, I will do my best to give the unbiased viewpoint that my clients expect of me.

Russell is tormented by an affliction that troubles many of us in technology: We see the direction that technology is headed, then we consider what makes sense, and we can’t tolerate any conflicts between the two.

In Russell’s case, the problem is the memory/processor speed bottleneck.

Continue reading “A Change to Computing Architecture?”

Micron, Intel, Introduce 128Gb NAND Chip

Micron Technology and Intel announced today (6 December, 2011) that the two companies are sampling a 128 gigabit (that’s 16 gigabytes) NAND flash chip manufactured by the company’s IMFT joint venture.

This is a doubling of the capacity of the 64Gb chip the companies announced in April, but they assure us that the size of the die hasn’t doubled, and the accompanying photo supports this. Intel tells us that the die will fit into standard BGA and TSOP packages. Continue reading “Micron, Intel, Introduce 128Gb NAND Chip”

IBM to Build Micron Hybrid Memory Cube

In a December 1 press release IBM announced that the company will be manufacturing Micron Technology’s Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) which IBM claims to be “the first commercial CMOS manufacturing technology to employ through-silicon vias (TSVs).”

This device is one that Altera, Intel, Micron, Open Silicon, Samsung, and Xilinx have all presented recently as a plausible solution to the difficulty of increasing the speed of DRAM/processor communications. The Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC) website offers a deep dive into the details of the consortium and the technology.

Continue reading “IBM to Build Micron Hybrid Memory Cube”

Top Ten Trends for NAND Flash

During the Flash Memory Summit in August three panelists were asked to tell what they thought would be the top ten trends for NAND flash in 2012.

The panelists were:

Troy Winslow, director of product and channel marketing for the Intel NAND group
Radoslav Danilak, SandForce founder and now CEO of StorCloud
Me

Here are mine:

Enterprise SSDs will be used in all data centers
There is still a lot of growth in NAND
Controllers will get more sophisticated
System software will be designed for NAND first
Tablet PCs will morph into newer devices
Not everyone can be a successful SSD supplier
NOR has a long future in code storage
NAND in PCs is a threat to DRAM, not HDDs
The death of flash is not imminent
SSDs in PCs will lose out to NAND + HDD

Over ten future posts I will elaborate on these. As I do I will add hot links to the list above to guide readers to these predictions. If any of the hot links are inactive, come back later and check again.

Many are detailed in reports on the Objective Analysis Reports page.