Micron Technology today introduced a portfolio of high-capacity
flash memory products that will lengthen the life of NAND for
years to come.
By integrating the error management techniques in the same NAND
package, the new Micron ClearNAND devices alleviate the
challenges traditionally found in NAND process shrinks. Micron's
ClearNAND portfolio extends the opportunities for more advanced
NAND process generations to be used in enterprise servers, tablet
PCs, portable media players, and other consumer applications.
"The pace of NAND scaling is largely responsible for the
incredible growth and success the industry has seen to date, and
for helping to create new flash-based storage solutions," said
Glen Hawk, vice president of Micron's NAND Solutions Group.
"While the advantages in NAND scaling are evident, so are the
challenges with the technology becoming increasingly more
difficult to manage. Micron's ClearNAND products remove this
management burden for our customers and extend the life of this
all-important technology."
Micron's ClearNAND products utilize a traditional raw NAND
interface, and include new features that are optimized for
high-capacity and high-performance applications. As the industry
progresses past 20-nanometer (nm), flash management gets more
challenging because the amount of bit errors increases
dramatically, impacting NAND performance and reliability. By
tightly coupling the error management with the NAND devices in a
single package, Micron?s customers can continue to take advantage
of the highest capacity and lowest cost-per-bit flash memory
solution. Micron's ClearNAND products are first designed using
its 25nm multi-level cell (MLC) process, and are available in two
versions: Standard and Enhanced.
Micron's Standard ClearNAND products come in 8 to 32 gigabyte
(GB) packages, and are intended to remove the error correction
code (ECC) burden from the host processor with minimal protocol
changes compared to raw NAND. The Standard ClearNAND portfolio is
targeted for portable media players and other consumer electronic
devices.
Micron's Enhanced ClearNAND products, in addition to removing the
ECC burden from the host processor, also provide new enterprise
specific features to enable high-capacity designs, delivering
improved performance and reliability. Capacities are available in
16 to 64GB packages. The Enhanced ClearNAND products are targeted
at enterprise and computing applications, and allows leading-edge
25nm MLC NAND to be used in these applications for the first
time.
Both Micron Standard ClearNAND and Enhanced ClearNAND products
are available now.