• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Intel, Micron First to Sample 3-Bit-Per-Cell NAND Flash Memory on 25 nm Process

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,362 (7.68/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. today announced the delivery of 3-bit-per-cell (3bpc) NAND flash memory on 25-nanometer (nm) process technology, producing the industry's highest capacity, smallest NAND device. The companies have sent initial product samples to select customers. Intel and Micron expect to be in full production by the end of the year.

The new 64-gigabit (Gb) 3bpc on 25nm memory device offers improved cost efficiencies and higher storage capacity for the competitive USB, SD (Secure Digital) flash card and consumer electronics markets. Flash memory is primarily used to store data, photos and other multimedia for use in capturing and transferring data between computing and digital devices such as digital cameras, portable media players, digital camcorders and all types of personal computers. These markets are under constant pressure to provide higher capacities at low prices.

Designed by the IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) NAND flash joint venture, the 64-Gb, or 8 gigabyte (GB), 25nm lithography stores three bits of information per cell, rather than the traditional one bit (single-level cell) or two bits (multi-level cell). The industry also refers to 3bpc as triple-level cell (TLC.)

The device is more than 20 percent smaller than the same capacity of Intel and Micron's 25nm MLC, which is currently the smallest single 8GB device in production today. Small form-factor flash memory is especially important for consumer end-product flash cards given their intrinsic compact design. The die measures 131mm² and comes in an industry-standard TSOP package.


"With January's introduction of the industry's smallest die size at 25nm, quickly followed by the move to 3-bit-per-cell on 25nm, we continue to gain momentum and offer customers a compelling set of leadership products," said Tom Rampone, Intel vice president and general manager of Intel NAND Solutions Group. "Intel plans to use the design and manufacturing leadership of IMFT to deliver higher-density, cost-competitive products to our customers based on the new 8GB TLC 25nm NAND device."

"As the role of NAND memory continues to escalate in consumer electronics products, we see the early transition to TLC on 25nm as a competitive edge in our growing portfolio of NAND memory products," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's NAND Solutions Group. "We are already working to qualify the 8GB TLC NAND flash device within end-product designs, including higher-capacity products from Lexar Media and Micron."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Last edited by a moderator:

WarEagleAU

Bird of Prey
Joined
Jul 9, 2006
Messages
10,812 (1.66/day)
Location
Gurley, AL
System Name Pandemic 2020
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 "Gen 2" 2600X
Motherboard AsRock X470 Killer Promontory
Cooling CoolerMaster 240 RGB Master Cooler (Newegg Eggxpert)
Memory 32 GB Geil EVO Portenza DDR4 3200 MHz
Video Card(s) ASUS Radeon RX 580 DirectX 12 DUAL-RX580-O8G 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video C
Storage WD 250 M.2, Corsair P500 M.2, OCZ Trion 500, WD Black 1TB, Assorted others.
Display(s) ASUS MG24UQ Gaming Monitor - 23.6" 4K UHD (3840x2160) , IPS, Adaptive Sync, DisplayWidget
Case Fractal Define R6 C
Audio Device(s) Realtek 5.1 Onboard
Power Supply Corsair RMX 850 Platinum PSU (Newegg Eggxpert)
Mouse Razer Death Adder
Keyboard Corsair K95 Mechanical & Corsair K65 Wired, Wireless, Bluetooth)
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
Is this what they are going to be using in the gen 3 drives that was posted on here yesterday?
 
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
8,519 (1.43/day)
Location
Kansas City
System Name The Dove Box Rev 3.0
Processor i7 8700k @ 4.7GHz
Motherboard Asus Maximus X APEX
Cooling Custom water loop
Memory 16GB 3600 MHz DDR4
Video Card(s) 2x MSI 780 Ti's in SLI
Storage 500GB Samsung 850 PCIe SSD, 4TB
Display(s) 27" Asus 144Hz
Case Enermax Fulmo GT
Audio Device(s) ON BOARD FTW
Power Supply Corsair 1200W
Keyboard Logitech G510
Software Win 10 64x
Very nice video there. He explains quite a bit and the implications are abundant with these technologies.

This should be the key component to seeing XSD sizes of 1TB SD card.
 
Joined
Feb 17, 2007
Messages
1,238 (0.20/day)
Location
SoCal
Processor AMD Phenom II 1055T @ 3.6ghz 1.3V
Motherboard Asus M5A97 EVO
Cooling Xigmatek SD1284
Memory 2x4GB Patriot Sector 5 PC3-12800 @ 7-8-7-24-1T 1.7V
Video Card(s) XFX Radeon HD 7950 DD @ 1100/1350 1.185V
Storage OCZ Agility 3 120GB + 2x7200.12 500GB Raid1
Display(s) QNIX QX2710 27" LCD 1440p @ 120hz
Case Cooler Master 690M
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC892
Power Supply Enermax Liberty 620W Eco Edition
Software Windows 7 Professional x64 / Ubuntu 12.04 x64
Definetly cool for something portable like CF or SDHC/XC. But I hope we don't see that technology in SSD HDDs. The wear leveling per cell in an MLC probably averages around twice that of an SLC cell in the same timeframe (similar usage). Making a cell TLC will likely wear it around twice as fast as an MLC cell. That could mean drastically shorter lifetimes for SSD drives (not even counting the theortical performance drop from an MLC to a TLC). Although I am glad that the guy in the video did at least bring up these trade offs.
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2007
Messages
2,723 (0.45/day)
Processor i5-7600k
Motherboard ASRock Z170 Pro4
Cooling CM Hyper 212 EVO w/ AC MX-4
Memory 2x8GB DDR4 2400 Corsair LPX Vengeance 15-15-15-36
Video Card(s) MSI Twin Frozr 1070ti
Storage 240GB Corsair Force GT
Display(s) 23' Dell AW2310
Case Corsair 550D
Power Supply Seasonic SS-760XP2 Platinum
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
"The performance and the endurance as measured in the number of times you can program the NAND tend to degrade as we increase more bits per cell"...

Not very appealing.....not at all :mad:
 

zads

New Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
66 (0.01/day)
Location
San Jose, Ca
Processor Q9450 @ 3.2 Ghz, 1.225V
Motherboard ASUS P5K-VM
Cooling Xigmatek HDT-S1283
Memory 6GB DDR2-800
Video Card(s) Nvidia 8800GS 384MB
Storage 32GB SSD and 500GB HDD
Display(s) Dual 22" Samsung LCDs
Case Antec Mini P180 Black
Power Supply 600W Modular; Ultra Products
Its actually an exponential decrease of wear endurance as you go up in bits-per-cell;
SLC to MLC to TLC
and wear endurance decreases as you go to smaller process technologies (50nm->34nm->25nm etc).
The result is that in our testing, the limit of these flash cells is on the order of 100-300 write cycles.
So.. not for any SSDs (Gen 3 or otherwise).
Only for XDHC SD cards and the like flash memory cards, to push down the $/GB.

Most 25nm-class flash will be MLC, just that the ECC correction requirement for the SSD controller will be high higher than current requirements for 34nm flash chips.
 
Top