Toshiba Celebrates Quarter-Century NAND Flash Anniversary

By Kevin Parrish
published

NAND flash turns 25-years-old this year, and Toshiba wants to celebrate.

Toshiba America Electronic Components sent out a reminder on Tuesday that it successfully developed NAND flash memory 25 years ago. Just think: in 1987, the stock market crashed, FOX made its debut on TV with programming like Married... with Children, The Simpsons and The Tracey Ullman Show, U2 hit the music charts with its first single off The Joshua Tree, Michael Jackson was Bad, and Three Men and a Baby proved that Star Trek's Spock was more than just a mere Vulcan.

"Much has changed since 1987," Toshiba reports. "The NAND flash market has grown rapidly, with flash memory shipping almost 8x more gigabytes (GB) in 2011 than DRAM. NAND flash has become the high density silicon storage of choice. NAND flash memory is used in a variety of memory cards and USB drives, and is found in many consumer, industrial and enterprise cloud applications."

"Toshiba's innovation has carved out a path to a new era in which consumers are able to carry videos, music, books and data with them wherever they go," the company adds. "Designed with a very small cell size to enable a low cost-per-bit of stored data,Toshiba's NAND flash technology is unleashing the mobility of content, thus fueling innovation in the development of products for everyone from consumers to enterprise."

To celebrate the 25th anniversary, Toshiba will play host to "notable industry events and consumer participation" which likely doesn't include party hats and birthday cake. Toshiba also said it will launch an "interactive campaign that embraces industry voices and experiences exploring the impact of NAND flash is forthcoming."

"NAND flash has truly permeated our lives -- this technology has been a game changer, making the world a different place and making many of the products we use today possible," noted Scott Nelson, vice president, Memory Business Unit, TAEC.

Maybe Toshiba should get everyone to raise their smartphone and tablet in the air at a specific time and yell: "Long live NAND flash! Yay Toshiba!" OK maybe not.

Kevin Parrish
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Plasmid
    Good now lower the prices
    Reply
  • jrharbort
    PlasmidGood now lower the pricesPatience, young one.

    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ssd-hdd-solid-state-drive-hard-disk-drive-prices,14336.html
    Reply
  • alidan
    jrharbortPatience, young one.http://www.tomshardware.com/news/s 14336.htmlthat number is complete bs.

    the reason solid state is falling fast is because there is a market for it, be it mobile devices or desktops. harddrives had to innovate, and get better over the years, solid state was more or less invented into processes that were already on track...

    unless they come up with a way to fit more data per square mm besides nm shrinks, there is a base cost of about 50000$ a wafer, and about 21 tb a wafer, granted i REALLY want the size of a ssd chip (waffer, not the black shell) and how much space it stores so i can tell better how much ssds really cost, but there is a base cost that will not go down, and the only way to get it down... well... intel made a 450 wafer plant correct? if a 450 costs the same as a 300 to make, than thats one way to trim costs, the other is nm shrink, which even if we get to the 5nm range, they are JUST able to start competing with the prices pre flood, assuming the tech takes off, we may have 60tb drives around the same time for 2-300$, which is far cheaper than they can offer.

    i got off on a tangent there, but point stands, ssds will never be cheaper than a hdd, and we will forever need more space... just watch what happens if xbox gets a bluray drive, you will see many games take up 25-50gb for no reason other than no compression.
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    alidanthat number is complete bs.the reason solid state is falling fast is because there is a market for it, be it mobile devices or desktops. harddrives had to innovate, and get better over the years, solid state was more or less invented into processes that were already on track...unless they come up with a way to fit more data per square mm besides nm shrinks, there is a base cost of about 50000$ a wafer, and about 21 tb a wafer, granted i REALLY want the size of a ssd chip (waffer, not the black shell) and how much space it stores so i can tell better how much ssds really cost, but there is a base cost that will not go down, and the only way to get it down... well... intel made a 450 wafer plant correct? if a 450 costs the same as a 300 to make, than thats one way to trim costs, the other is nm shrink, which even if we get to the 5nm range, they are JUST able to start competing with the prices pre flood, assuming the tech takes off, we may have 60tb drives around the same time for 2-300$, which is far cheaper than they can offer. i got off on a tangent there, but point stands, ssds will never be cheaper than a hdd, and we will forever need more space... just watch what happens if xbox gets a bluray drive, you will see many games take up 25-50gb for no reason other than no compression.
    Flash can't scale down to 5nm because it's insulators can't fit in that small of a process node. Basically it can't handle leakage at that node and would not work. It would need to be replaced by SONOS/SHINOS to get insulators that can get thinner than Flash's insulators and still work. Even then, I don't know if they can get that small for 5nm.

    naomiquexiharddrives had to innovate, and get better over the years, solid state was more or less invented into processes that were already on track...
    At least we know ways to keep on with the increasing of hard drive data density and thus capacity and performance. With Flash, we know it's limited and needs replacement because there's little that we can do about it besides replacement with another technology, even if it's one that is very similar such as SONOS and SHINOS (they're basically Flash, except made from different materials, if I remember correctly).
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    Didn't know Toshiba was the one that invented a NAND chip. Thanks Toshiba!
    Reply
  • alidan
    blazorthonFlash can't scale down to 5nm because it's insulators can't fit in that small of a process node. Basically it can't handle leakage at that node and would not work. It would need to be replaced by SONOS/SHINOS to get insulators that can get thinner than Flash's insulators and still work. Even then, I don't know if they can get that small for 5nm.At least we know ways to keep on with the increasing of hard drive data density and thus capacity and performance. With Flash, we know it's limited and needs replacement because there's little that we can do about it besides replacement with another technology, even if it's one that is very similar such as SONOS and SHINOS (they're basically Flash, except made from different materials, if I remember correctly).
    i know, the real wall is something like 6 or 7nm, but i did the math down to 5nm to make it easier on me, and even than they just barely were able to match the cost gb.

    well there are things you can do to increase flash density, and that would be making the chips 3d... if they can make the layering take less time than a full new wafer, it would drive cost down by a fair amount. hell layering it would actually make ssd competitive with hdds in size, and possibly cost per gb if it can be done fast enough.

    but i never take that into account when i run numbers, i just take whats actually happening into account.
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    alidani know, the real wall is something like 6 or 7nm, but i did the math down to 5nm to make it easier on me, and even than they just barely were able to match the cost gb. well there are things you can do to increase flash density, and that would be making the chips 3d... if they can make the layering take less time than a full new wafer, it would drive cost down by a fair amount. hell layering it would actually make ssd competitive with hdds in size, and possibly cost per gb if it can be done fast enough.but i never take that into account when i run numbers, i just take whats actually happening into account.
    The only problem that I see with die/chip stacking like that is power usage. SSDs are known to be low power devices, but how much power will one use if it has four times (or any other reasonable number) more power sucking silicon electronics?
    Reply
  • alidan
    blazorthonThe only problem that I see with die/chip stacking like that is power usage. SSDs are known to be low power devices, but how much power will one use if it has four times (or any other reasonable number) more power sucking silicon electronics?
    well... does a ssd constantly need full power to everything, or is that more of a just when its read and written? at least from my understanding the power usage comes from the controller more than the actual space itself.

    here
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148527
    that is a 512gb drive
    active power usage on it is 0.28W

    even if power scaled with the drive, it would take a 10tb drive to rival today's hdds in power usage.
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    alidanwell... does a ssd constantly need full power to everything, or is that more of a just when its read and written? at least from my understanding the power usage comes from the controller more than the actual space itself.herehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod 6820148527that is a 512gb driveactive power usage on it is 0.28Weven if power scaled with the drive, it would take a 10tb drive to rival today's hdds in power usage.
    Ahh, good point.
    Reply