Intel and Micron's jointly-developed 3D QLC (4 bits per cell) NAND memory is featured in a new Micron enterprise SSD, the 5210 ION. The drive will have a capacity of 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, or 7.68 TB, and a write endurance of less than 1 drive write per day (possibly as low as 0.1 DWPD):
The cost reduction brought by QLC NAND is a much-awaited advance for enterprise storage. Most NAND flash manufacturers have started sampling QLC NAND within the past year, generally built on the same 64-layer 3D NAND processes that current-generation TLC NAND uses. Micron has previously shown wafers of 512Gb 64-layer QLC when announcing the addition of QLC to their roadmap, but today they are also announcing a 1Tb 64L QLC part—the first 1Tb memory chip to hit commercial availability. That 1Tb part is organized as four planes that can be processing I/O commands in parallel, compared to two planes for previous Intel/Micron NAND parts. This helps offset most of the performance loss associated with increasing per-die capacity. Thanks to the "CMOS under the array" design of Intel/Micron 3D NAND, the extra peripheral circuitry requried by doubling the number of planes doesn't add much to the overall die size.
It was initially feared that QLC write endurance would be low enough that drives would need to be treated more or less as write-once, read-many (WORM) devices, requiring careful handling on the software side. With multiple manufacturers now rating their QLC NAND for around 1k P/E cycles, it is clear that QLC-based SSDs aren't too fragile and can handle many existing workloads without needing major software changes to reduce writes.
Micron is primarily marketing the 5210 ION SSDs as replacement for hard drives, rather than replacements for any existing tier of enterprise SSD products. In this role, the 5210 ION will have clear advantages in density (with 2-8TB per 2.5" drive) and performance. QLC NAND only provides incremental improvements to cost, so the 5210 ION won't be matching 7200RPM hard drives for price per GB, but 10k RPM drives will probably be feeling the pressure, especially from TCO calculations that take into account the power efficiency advantages of SSDs.
The next generation of Intel/Micron 3D NAND will have 96 layers, potentially using string-stacking to combine two 48-layer dies. After that, Intel and Micron will go their separate ways.
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Tom's Hardware reports on a crude method that may enable the production of vertical/3D NAND with more than 100 layers in the future:
Today's 3D NAND weighs in at 32 to 48 layers, but increasing the density beyond 100 layers appears to be an impossible challenge due to the limitations of high-aspect ratio etch tools, which etch the holes in the NAND (1.8 billion for Samsung 48-layer NAND). Today's tools have 30:1 to 40:1 aspect ratios for 32- and 48-layer NAND, respectively, but creating 64-layer NAND will require an aspect ratio of 60:1 to 70:1. The only problem? There are no tools that can achieve that aspect ratio.
Several NAND vendors are reportedly developing a new "string-stacking" method that will merely stack the 3D NAND devices on top of each other. For instance, three 48-layer stacks will be stacked upon each other to create a 144-layer chip. String stacking may allow for scaling up to 300 layers, but the challenge will be how to link the stacks and produce it in a cost-effective manner. Unfortunately, the NAND fabs have not even mastered that for standard 3D NAND as of yet.
In other NAND news, there may be a shortage of 3D NAND, indicated by Samsung using 16nm 2D TLC NAND in its new 750 EVO SSDs.
At present Micron is ramping up production of its 64-layer 3D TLC NAND memory (2nd Gen 3D NAND) and last quarter it achieved production output crossover with other types of NAND the company manufactures. This is particularly good news for Micron because 64-layer 3D NAND devices are significantly more cost-efficient in terms of cost per bit compared to 32-layer 3D NAND memory, which allows Micron to earn more. In fact, 64-layer 3D NAND enabled Micron to launch two major products. First, the company released its 2.5-inch SATA 5200 ECO SSDs with up to 7.68 TB capacity in January targeting mainstream servers. Second, 64-layer 3D QLC memory enabled Micron to compete for nearline storage segment with its 5210 ION drives launched back in May.
Earlier this month we reported that at least two developers of SSD controllers have qualified Micron's 96-layer 3D TLC NAND memory for SSDs. During the conference call, Micron confirmed that it was on track to ship its 3rd Gen 3D NAND in volumes for commercial products in the second half of calendar 2018. It is not clear whether the initial batches of such memory will be used for various removable storage solutions (memory cards, USB flash drives, etc.) as it happens usually, but it is evident that Micron's 96-layer 3D NAND is making a good progress with designers of SSD controllers. Maxio Technology intends to use Micron's 3D TLC B27A memory for inexpensive drives based on its MAS0902A-B2C DRAM-less controller, whereas Silicon Motion is so confident of this memory that it has qualified it with its top-of-the-range SM2262EN controller for high-performance SSDs.
[...] While sales of Micron's SSDs are growing (and currently account for 50% of Micron's storage business revenue, or $507 million) and the company continues to shift to high-value specialized NAND products from selling raw NAND chips, shipments of 3D XPoint are below expectations. According to Micron, it sold "very little" 3D XPoint memory to its unnamed parter (almost certainly Intel) during its Q3 FY2018.
Micron's 4th-generation 3D NAND could have up to 128 layers.
Related: "String-Stacking" Being Developed to Enable 3D NAND With More Than 100 Layers
64-Layer 3D NAND at Computex
SK Hynix Developing 96 and 128-Layer TLC 3D NAND
Intel and Micron Boost 3D XPoint Production
Micron Launches First QLC NAND SSD
Western Digital Begins to Sample QLC BiCS4: 1.33 Tbit 96-Layer 3D NAND
Western Digital has started sampling its 96-layer 3D NAND chips featuring QLC architecture that stores four bits per cell. The chip happens to be the world's highest-capacity 3D NAND device. The company expects to commence volume shipments of this memory chip already this calendar year.
Western Digital's 96-layer BICS4 3D QLC NAND chip can store up to 1.33 Tb of raw data, or around 166 GB. The IC will be initially used for consumer products Western Digital sells under the SanDisk brand, so think of memory cards (e.g., high-capacity SD and microSD products), USB drives, and some other devices. The manufacturer expects its 3D QLD[sic] NAND memory to be used in a variety of applications, including retail, mobile, embedded, client, and enterprise, but does not elaborate on timing at this point.
The 1.33-Tb BICS4 IC is Western Digital's second-gen 3D QLC NAND device. Last year the company announced its BICS3 64-layer 3D QLC chips featuring a 768 Gb capacity, but it is unclear whether they have ever been used for commercial products. Meanwhile, it is clear that the device was used to learn about 3D QLC behavior in general (i.e., endurance, read errors, retention, etc.)
[...] What is noteworthy is that officially the BiCS4 range was to include both TLC and QLC ICs with capacities ranging from 256 Gb to 1 Tb, so the 1.33 Tb IC is a surprising addition to the lineup which signals Western Digital's confidence of its technology.
Recent products have been using 512 Gb per die NAND, with 768 Gb and 1 Tb on the horizon. Samsung's announced 128 TB SSD was supposed to use 1 Tb 3D QLC dies, so ~1.33 Tb dies could bring that capacity to about 170 TB. Given a couple more generations of NAND or some fancy die/package stacking, and we will probably see a 1 petabyte SSD.
Samsung is about to make 4TB SSDs and mobile storage cheaper
A couple of years ago, Samsung launched its first 4TB solid state drives, which might as well not have existed given their $1,499 asking price. Today, the company announces the commencement of mass production of a more — though it's too early to know exactly how much more — affordable variant with its 4TB QLC SSDs. The knock on QLC NAND storage has traditionally been that it sacrifices speed for an increased density, however Samsung promises the same 540MBps read and 520MBps write speeds for its new SSDs as it offers on its existing SATA SSD drives.
Describing this new family of storage drives, which will also include 1TB and 2TB variants, as consumer class, Samsung will obviously aim to price them at a level where quibbles about performance will be overwhelmed by the sheer advantage of having terabytes of space. Any concerns about the reliability of these drives should also be allayed by the three-year warranty promised by Samsung. The launch of the first drives built around these new storage chips is slated for later this year.
What's the endurance of QLC NAND again?
Also at Engadget.
Related: Toshiba's 3D QLC NAND Could Reach 1000 P/E Cycles
Samsung Announces a 128 TB SSD With QLC NAND
Micron Launches First QLC NAND SSD
Western Digital Samples 96-Layer 3D QLC NAND with 1.33 Tb Per Die
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:14AM
They ran. They were running faster than they ever ran before, to the point where they thought their legs might break. But even so, they were slow; far too slow. Something swooped down out of the trees and grabbed another among them. It had gotten Billy. It.
The group of young children - which had initially numbered 14 - had decided to go into the woods on a dare. But they soon found themselves lost, and not long after that, it appeared. It was a monster in the shape of a human that hid in the trees and could float through the air even without wings. It would appear, and one or more of the children would disappear; this pattern was immutable. This continued until only four were left: Erika, Sam, Rick, and Anderson. Suddenly, they heard a rustling sound in the trees, and before they could even comprehend the situation, Rick and Sam were gone. And so there were two.
Screaming. Erika and Anderson could once again hear the bloodcurdling screams of the children who were just taken away, and were once again filled with an incomprehensible sense of terror. They ran and they ran and they ran. It wasn't long before Anderson vanished, but she had no time to care about that.
She saw it. The edge of the forest where they had entered. It was right there. She just needed to reach it. As the little girl's heart filled with hope, she felt something grab her, and her sense of gravity was thrown off. Erika, out of reflex, looked up to see what had taken hold of her; she instantly regretted it. Hideous. Obese. Naked. It was an abomination that instilled a terror beyond all reckoning in those who saw it. The monster took the girl back to its nest, and...
Corpses. There were dozens - no, hundreds - of naked children's corpses surrounding a certain tree in the forest. If, at this point, one were to look to the sky, they would see something that resembled a human male floating in the air, as though gravity did not apply to it. No, perhaps gravity was simply afraid of it. It was a species without a name. If one were able to continue thinking after bearing witness to this abomination, a certain name would inevitably come to mind; it was as though the name was inherent to this monster's being.
The Floating Canadian Pedophile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:21AM (2 children)
aka Evaporative Data Storage
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:26AM (1 child)
Not everyone needs multiple drive writes per day, even in datacenters.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @11:04AM
In datacenters or elsewhere, written bytes need to stay written for some significant time. Data retention time of 1 year is already iffy in practice with TLC, it has to be simulated by periodic refreshes (which means drives doing some drive writes on their own, BTW).
http://goughlui.com/2016/11/08/note-samsung-850-evo-data-retention-performance-degradation/ [goughlui.com]
Will they now establish a new gold standard of 1 week or thereabouts for QLC?