“3D
is going to be one of the ways to go to keep Moore's Law going”
Associate professor of
microelectronic Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology,
Michael Jackson,
commenting on the Intel and Micron Partnership to develope High Density SSD
(Solid State Drives)
Ever
dreamed to superfast super-large SSD (Solid State Drive) Hard drive?
Well,
on Thursday March 26th 2015 Intel, Micro and Toshiba have decided to
turn it up thirty two (32) to forty eight (48) notches and make 10TB hard-drive
the size of a regular thumb drive a mainstream reality for laptops, Tablets and
the next generation of Storage Devices as stated in the article “Storage
that's both fast and roomy? It's on the way”, published March 26, 2015 9:31
AM PDT by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.
On
one end of this promise of superfast super-compact Terabyte SSD is Intel and
Micron, who have teamed up to create this SSD wonder. Their technology is based
on Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge Processors with 3D architecture introduced back in
2011 as explained in my blog article
entitled “Intel
& Poison Ivy Bridge Processors - 22nm in an Iso-Linear of Their Own”.
These
Ivy Bridge Processors have a 3D architecture on the chip substrate with so
called Tri-Gate Transistors that enable layers upon layers of transistors to be
built. The other end of the 3D V-NAND revolution is being powered by Toshiba,
who on Thursday March 26th 2015 will also be delivering their first
samples to PC and Laptop makers.
So
how does Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge Processors with 3D architecture, commercially called
V-NAND (Vertical Not AND), help to boost Moore’s Law?
Intel and Micron make
V-NAND SSD – 10TD Harddrives on a 2.5 inch Processor to compete against Samsung
The
logic is obvious as it is simple. Most processors and memory are built planar
i.e. flat arrangement of transistors on the silicon substrate as explained in
the article “Intel
and Micron announce 3D NAND production, open gates to 10TB SSDs”, published
March 26, 2015 By Matt Smith, DigitalTrends.
With
this new 22nm process that has 3D Transistor design added in, it’s possible to
stack Transistor on top of each other, making the same area of substrate onto
the silicon hold more transistors and thus allowing Intel-Micron to double the amount
of bits that can be stored.
Let’s
assume that you can fit one tri-gate V-NAND (Vertical Not AND) Transistor into
a single cell on a single layer and each cell represents one (1) NAND
Transistor on that capable of storing one (1) bit of data.
Using
the Intel-Micron approach, it becomes possible to stack two (2) bits in each
cell vertically if you have two (2) layers. This results in Processors and
SSD's that can store a total of 256 GB and if upped to three (3) bits per vertical
cell, up to 384GB.
In
practical terms, that’ll 10 terabytes (10TB) for a SSD with more than thirty two
(32) layers and 2.5-inch of surface area. Now that’ll awesome! Best of all,
Moore’s Law can continue on ad infinitum
by merely adding more layers.
Intel-Micron
partnership can create as many as thirty two (32) layers of 3D V-NAND Flash,
matching Samsung’s efforts thus far. Toshiba, who are also competing with
Intel-Micron and Samsung for the same V-NAND based SSD market, are pushing the
envelope with 3D based NAND Flash that has up to some forty eight (48) layers
of 3D V-NAND Flash.
Also
Samsung's technology uses the charge-trap approach whereas the Intel-Micron partnership
uses the Floating Gate approach, an older technology that should result in
lower prices and thus a competitive advantage again Samsung.
Intel-Micron vs Samsung
– Toshiba joins in to go after High-Capacity 3D V-NAND Market
They
definitely need that pricing advantage; Samsung has had their V-NAND 3D
Technology for SSD out since May 2014 as
stated in the Samsung Press Release article “Samsung
Starts Mass Producing Industry’s First 32-Layer 3D V-NAND Flash Memory, its 2nd
Generation V-NAND Offering”, published May. 29. 2014, Samsung.
This
technology made it’s official appearance on the tech scene in December 2014 in
the form of the Samsung's SSD 850 Evo family as stated in the article “Samsung
SSD 850 Evo brings 3D V-NAND tech to consumer drives”, published December 9, 2014 By Sean Portnoy, ZDNet and “SSDs
could get cheaper with Samsung's cutting-edge TLC V-NAND tech”, published
Oct 9, 2014 7:09 AM by Brad Chacos, PCWorld.
Computer
manufacturers can expect to start using this improved 3D V-NAND flash Processors
and Memory by the end of 2015 in everything from improved Laptop, smartphone
and Tablet hard-drives to MP4 players for HD Audio.
Combined
with Intel’s new Core M 14nm Processors aka Broadwell as described in my blog article
entitled “Intel
Core M Processor codenamed Broadwell – How Fanless, Smaller and Thinner proves
that If Life Gives you Lemons, Make Lemonade”, Intel is almost guaranteed
to get back into the Mobile Computing Game!
At
which point you'll start seeing SSD with memories possibly as high as 10TB
stored in space as small as a typical Thumb Drive. A 10TB Thumb Drive may be in
your future real soon….
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