Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced that it has
begun volume shipments of the world’s first 176-layer 3D NAND flash
memory, achieving unprecedented, industry-pioneering density and
performance. Together, Micron’s new 176-layer technology and
advanced architecture represent a radical breakthrough, enabling
immense gains in application performance across a range of storage
use cases spanning data center, intelligent edge and mobile
devices.
“Micron’s 176-layer NAND sets a new bar for the industry, with a
layer count that is almost 40% higher than our nearest
competitor’s,” said Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of
technology and products at Micron. “Combined with Micron’s
CMOS-under-array architecture, this technology sustains Micron’s
industry cost leadership.”
Representing Micron’s fifth generation of 3D NAND and
second-generation replacement-gate architecture, Micron’s 176-layer
NAND is the most technologically advanced NAND node in the market.
Compared with the company’s previous generation of high-volume 3D
NAND, Micron’s 176-layer NAND improves both read latency and write
latency by more than 35% — dramatically accelerating application
performance.1 Featuring approximately 30% smaller die size than
best-in-class competitive offerings, Micron’s 176-layer NAND’s
compact design is ideal for solutions using small form
factors.Groundbreaking technology arms diverse markets with
the fullest power of flash
“Micron’s 176-layer NAND enables breakthrough product innovation
for our customers,” said Sumit Sadana, executive vice president and
chief business officer at Micron. “We are deploying this technology
across our broad product portfolio to bring value everywhere NAND
is used, targeting growth opportunities in 5G, AI, cloud and the
intelligent edge.”
With its versatile design and unrivaled density, Micron’s
176-layer NAND serves as an essential building block in
technologists’ toolboxes across a broad array of sectors, including
mobile storage, autonomous systems, in-vehicle infotainment, and
client and data center solid-state drives (SSDs).
Micron’s 176-layer NAND offers improved quality of service
(QoS2), a critical design criterion for data center SSDs.3 This can
accelerate data-intensive environments and workloads such as data
lakes, artificial intelligence (AI) engines and big data analytics.
For 5G smartphones, the enhanced QoS can enable faster launching
and switching across multiple apps, creating a more seamless and
responsive mobile experience and enabling true multitasking and
full use of 5G’s low-latency network.
Micron’s fifth generation of 3D NAND also features an
industry-leading maximum data transfer rate at 1,600 megatransfers
per second (MT/s) on the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) bus, a
33% improvement.4 The increased ONFI speed leads to faster system
bootup and application performance. In automotive applications,
this speed will power near instant-on response times for in-vehicle
systems as soon as engines are turned on, enhancing the user
experience.Micron is working with industry developers to quickly
integrate the new products into solutions. To simplify firmware
development, Micron’s 176-layer NAND offers a single-pass
programming algorithm, enabling easier integration and speeding
time to market. Micron achieves unparalleled density and
cost leadership with novel architecture
With the slowing of Moore’s Law, Micron’s innovation in 3D NAND
is critical to ensuring that the industry can keep pace with
growing data requirements. To achieve this milestone, Micron has
uniquely combined its stacked replacement-gate architecture, novel
charge-trap and CMOS-under-array (CuA)5 techniques. Micron’s team
of 3D NAND experts achieved rapid advancements with the company’s
proprietary CuA technique, which constructs the multilayered stack
over the chip’s logic — packing more memory into a tighter space
and substantially shrinking the 176-layer NAND’s die size, yielding
more gigabytes per wafer.
In tandem, Micron has improved scalability and performance for
future NAND generations by transitioning its NAND cell technology
from legacy floating gate to charge-trap. This charge-trap
technology is combined with Micron’s replacement-gate architecture,
which uses highly conductive metal wordlines6 instead of a silicon
layer to achieve unparalleled 3D NAND performance. Micron’s
adoption of this technology will also enable the company to drive
aggressive, industry-leading cost reductions.
Applying these advanced techniques, Micron has increased
endurance, which is particularly beneficial in write-intensive use
cases — from black boxes in aerospace to video surveillance
recording. In mobile storage, 176-layer NAND’s replacement-gate
architecture results in 15% faster mixed workload performance7 to
power ultra-fast edge computing, enhanced AI inference, and
graphic-rich, real-time multiplayer gaming.
Availability Micron’s 176-layer triple-level
cell 3D NAND is in volume production in Micron’s Singapore fab and
now shipping to customers, including through its Crucial consumer
SSD product lines. The company will introduce additional new
products based on this technology during calendar 2021.
Resources
- Product page: 176-layer NAND
- Blog: Doing What Can’t Be Done
(Again) — Micron Ships 176-Layer NAND
- Whitepaper: Micron Transitions to
Next-Gen 3D NAND Replacement-Gate Technology
- Video: Taking 176-Layer Flash Memory
from Lab to Fab
- Video: Just How Remarkable Is
Micron's 176-Layer 3D Flash Memory?
About Micron Technology, Inc.
We are an industry leader in innovative memory and storage
solutions. Through our global brands — Micron® and Crucial® — our
broad portfolio of high-performance memory and storage
technologies, including DRAM, NAND, 3D XPoint™ memory and NOR, is
transforming how the world uses information to enrich life for all.
Backed by more than 40 years of technology leadership, our memory
and storage solutions enable disruptive trends, including
artificial intelligence, 5G, machine learning and autonomous
vehicles, in key market segments like mobile, data center, client,
consumer, industrial, graphics, automotive, and networking. Our
common stock is traded on the Nasdaq under the MU symbol. To learn
more about Micron Technology, Inc., visit micron.com.
© 2020 Micron Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Micron, the
Micron logo, and Intelligence Accelerated are trademarks of Micron
Technology, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
1 Comparison is based on Micron’s high-volume, floating-gate
96-layer NAND. When comparing with 128-layer replacement-gate NAND,
read latency and write latency for Micron’s 176-layer NAND both
improve by over 25%. 2 Quality of service (QoS) refers to the
consistency and predictability of SSD response times.3 Improved QoS
is driven by a reduction in block size and less variance in read
latency, as compared to Micron’s high-volume, floating-gate
96-layer NAND.4 Improvement is over Micron’s prior two generations
of 3D NAND (96-layer NAND and 128-layer NAND) which featured a
maximum of 1,200 MT/s data transfer rates. 5 CMOS stands for
complementary metal oxide semiconductor.6 Wordlines are connecting
wires to the gate of each NAND memory storage element in a NAND
memory array. Wordlines are used to select, program and erase
groups of memory cells in an array of NAND memory.7 This is
compared to Micron’s previous generation universal flash storage
3.1-based multichip package using floating-gate 96-layer NAND.
Micron Media Relations Contact
Steffi Lau
Micron Technology, Inc.
+1 (408) 834-1618
steffilau@micron.com
Micron Investor Relations Contact
Farhan Ahmad
Micron Technology, Inc.
+1 (408) 834-1927
farhanahmad@micron.com
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