Micron and Intel announce the availability of their highest-density flash memory technology yet-- 3D NAND, featuring vertical stacks of data storage cells, allowing for more storage in less space.
According to the two company 3D NAND allows for three times higher capacity than competing NAND technologies while keeping flash storage performance gains and cost savings aligned with Moore's Law.
3D NAND is is built out of floating gate cells, a design in use by the regular "2D" flash storage. As the companies put it, 3D NAND "stacks flash cells vertically in 32 layers to achieve 256Gb multilevel cell (MLC) and 384Gb triple-level cell (TLC) die that fit within a standard package. These capacities can enable gum stick-sized SSDs with more than 3.5TB of storage and standard 2.5-inch SSDs with greater than 10TB."
Furthermore the technology is green, as it can cut power to inactive NAND dies while other dies in the same package are active, allowing for more effective low-power sleep modes.
Intel and Micron expect the first 3D NAND-based SSD products to be available by 2016.