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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday June 26 2019, @09:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the marketing-dimension dept.

SK Hynix Starts Production of 128-Layer 4D NAND, 176-Layer Being Developed

SK Hynix has announced it has finished development of its 128-layer 1 terabit 3D TLC NAND flash. The new memory features the company's charge trap flash (CTF) design, along with the peripheral under cells (PUC) architecture that the company calls '4D' NAND, announced some time ago. The new 128-layer TLC NAND flash devices will ship to interested parties in the second half of this year, and SK Hynix intends to offer products based on the new chips in 2020.

[...] In the first half of next year SK Hynix promises to roll out its UFS 3.1 storage products based on the new 1 Tb devices. The company plans to offer 1 TB UFS 3.1 chips that will consume up to 20% less [power] when compared to similar products that use 512 Gb ICs.

[...] String stacking technology, as well as the multi-stacked design, will enable SK Hynix to keep increasing the number of layers. SK Hynix says that it is currently developing 176-layer 4D NAND flash, but does not disclose when it is expected to become available.

Previously: "String-Stacking" Being Developed to Enable 3D NAND With More Than 100 Layers
SK Hynix Developing 96 and 128-Layer TLC 3D NAND

Related: Expect 20-30% Cheaper NAND in Late 2018
Micron: 96-Layer 3D NAND Coming, 3D XPoint Sales Disappoint
Western Digital Samples 96-Layer 3D QLC NAND with 1.33 Tb Per Die
Samsung Shares Plans for 96-Layer TLC NAND, QLC NAND, and 2nd-Generation "Z-NAND"


Original Submission

Related Stories

"String-Stacking" Being Developed to Enable 3D NAND With More Than 100 Layers 2 comments

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.


Original Submission

SK Hynix Developing 96 and 128-Layer TLC 3D NAND 3 comments

SK Hynix is currently developing 96-layer and 128-layer 3D NAND with 3 bits per cell, but may be skipping quad-level cell 3D NAND for some time:

The 64-layer 3D NAND about to land from Micron and Toshiba certainly sounds impressive, but it pales in comparison to what Sk Hynix is working on for future release. The company is developing 96-layer and 128-layer 3D NAND flash. The new flash won't be available for a few years, but that makes it no less exciting. We have yet to see 72-layer 3D from Sk Hynix in our lab, but it will begin shipping soon in the PC401 using 256Gbit TLC die, according to the UNH-IOL list of tested products.

The information we found about the successor to 256Gbit 72-layer 3D TLC shows 96 layers with 512Gbit die capacity. The follow up to that is a massive 1Tbit die from 128-layer TLC from the other South Korean SSD manufacturer with full vertical integration.

Toshiba (or whichever company acquires Toshiba's memory division) may be more likely to introduce QLC 3D NAND.

Previously:
SK Hynix Plans 72-Layer 512 Gb NAND for Late 2017
64-Layer 3D NAND at Computex


Original Submission

Expect 20-30% Cheaper NAND in Late 2018 7 comments

The 512 Gb dies are coming:

64-layer 3D NAND is shipping, but the 256Gbit die will come and go rapidly. That's what makes this NAND cycle different. Many of the companies we've spoken to do not want to invest in products with such a limited shelf life. The 512Gbit die are right around the corner from the fabs. Some estimates put a major ramp up coming before mid year. The technology offers a 2x capacity increase while taking only a little more space on the wafer. The bits per wafer doesn't double, but it gets very close. The retail products coming in the second half of 2018 with have a heavy impact on SSD pricing. Some estimates from engineers we've spoken with put retail pricing on track for a 20% to 30% reduction over similar-capacity products shipping today.

Emerging technologies and form factors that reduce the material costs will also play a role. Toshiba Memory America showcased the new RC100 NVMe SSD that uses multi-chip packaging to cram the controller and flash in a single package.

Toshiba has described stacking 8-16 512 Gb dies with through silicon vias (TSVs) to create 512 GB and 1 TB packages. Samsung plans to stack 32 256 Gb dies to make 1 TB packages for an upcoming 128 TB SSD.

Previously: SK Hynix Plans 72-Layer 512 Gb NAND for Late 2017
SK Hynix Developing 96 and 128-Layer TLC 3D NAND
Intel First to Market With 64-Layer 3D NAND SSDs
Western Digital Announces 96-Layer 3D NAND, Including Both TLC and QLC
Toshiba's 3D QLC NAND Could Reach 1000 P/E Cycles
WD Announces 64-Layer 3D QLC NAND With 768 Gb Per Die, to be Shown at Flash Memory Summit


Original Submission

Micron: 96-Layer 3D NAND Coming, 3D XPoint Sales Disappoint 1 comment

Micron Non-Volatile Update (Q2'18): 96L 3D NAND in H2, 4th Gen 3D NAND Enroute, Sales of 3D XPoint Disappoint

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


Original Submission

Western Digital Samples 96-Layer 3D QLC NAND with 1.33 Tb Per Die 4 comments

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 Shares Plans for 96-Layer TLC NAND, QLC NAND, and 2nd-Generation "Z-NAND" 4 comments

Samsung Shares SSD Roadmap for QLC NAND And 96-layer 3D NAND

At Samsung's Tech Day event today in San Jose, the company shared their SSD roadmap for transitioning to 96-layer 3D NAND and introducing four bit per cell (QLC) NAND flash memory. Successors have been named for most of their current SSDs that use three bit per cell (TLC) NAND flash and are being updated with 96-layer 3D TLC, and new product lines using QLC NAND have been introduced.

[...] The enterprise SAS product line is not seeing any major changes to performance or available capacities, but the update from the PM1643 to the PM1643a does improve random write performance by about 20%. The largest model remains 30.72TB. The high-end enterprise NVMe drives are getting a major controller update that brings PCIe 4.0 support in addition to the NAND upgrade. This allows for much higher performance across the board, most notably with sequential read speeds reaching 8GB/s on the new PM1733 compared to 3.5GB/s on the PM1723b. The maximum available capacity has caught up to the SAS product line with the introduction of a 30.72TB model.

[...] Samsung also mentioned that in Q2 2019 they are planning to introduce a higher-performing 512Gb QLC die to complement their current 1Tb die. Samsung compared the performance of this new 512Gb die against an unspecified competitor's 1Tb QLC, claiming that Samsung's high-performance QLC will have 37% lower read latency and 45% lower program latency.

[...] The first products featuring the second generation of Samsung's low-latency Z-NAND flash memory will be the SZ1733 and SZ1735, high-end enterprise NVMe SSDs that differ primarily in the amount of overprovisioning. Samsung has announced that their second generation of Z-NAND will include a MLC version, but these drives are using the SLC version. Like the TLC-based PM1733, the new Z-NAND SSDs will also feature dual-port capability and PCIe 4.0 support. Sequential reads of up to 12GB/s are claimed, but this product line is all about random I/O, which Samsung hasn't detailed yet. Samsung demoed a 4TB model, significantly larger than the 800GB maximum for the first-generation SZ985.

Z-NAND (PDF) has lower latency than normal NAND, and could be compared to Intel and Micron's 3D XPoint.

Related: Western Digital and Samsung at the Flash Memory Summit
Samsung Announces a 128 TB SSD With QLC NAND
Samsung Announces Production of 1-4 TB Consumer 3D QLC NAND SSDs


Original Submission

China's Yangtze Memory Technologies Develops 128-Layer 1.33 Tb QLC 3D NAND 28 comments

China Develops High Capacity QLC 3D NAND: YMTC at 1.33 Tb

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) has announced that it's developed its new 128-layer 1.33 Tb QLC 3D NAND memory chip, the X2-6070. The new chip is based on its Xtacking architecture which enables it to run with super high I/O while maximising the density of its memory arrays. YMTC has also unveiled its plan for a 128-layer 512 Gb TLC chip, the X2-9060, designed to meet more diverse application requirements.

[...] The QLC based X2-6070 has 128-layers and more than 366 billion effective charge-trap memory cells. Each memory cell has 4-bit of data, which equates to 1.33 Tb of storage capacity. Everything is proportionate to cost, and it seems like YMTC, which is newer than most to 3D NAND stacking, could again improve its Xtacking architecture in the future.

Xtacking is not a typo.

Related:
Western Digital Samples 96-Layer 3D QLC NAND with 1.33 Tb Per Die
'Unstoppable' Chinese NAND fabber YMTC to unleash 64-layer flash flood before skipping ahead to 128 – analyst
SK Hynix Finishes 128-Layer 3D NAND, Plans 176-Layer 3D NAND
Report: China-Based Yangtze Memory Starts 64-Layer NAND Production
YMTC Starts Volume Production of 64-Layer 3D NAND


Original Submission

Micron Announces 176-layer 3D NAND 5 comments

Micron Announces 176-layer 3D NAND

Just in time for Flash Memory Summit, Micron is announcing their fifth generation of 3D NAND flash memory, with a record-breaking 176 layers. The new 176L flash is their second generation developed since the dissolution of Micron's memory collaboration with Intel, after which Micron switched from a floating-gate memory cell design to a charge-trap cell. Micron's previous generation 3D NAND was a 128-layer design that served as a short-lived transitional node for them to work out any issues with the switch to charge trap flash. Micron's 128L flash has had minimal presence on the market, so their new 176L flash will in many cases serve as the successor to their 96L 3D NAND as well.

Micron is still withholding many technical details about their 176L NAND, with more information planned to be shared at the end of the month. But for now, we know their first 176L parts are 512Gbit TLC dies, built using string stacking of two 88-layer decks—Micron would seem to now be in second place behind Samsung for how many layers of NAND flash memory cells they can fabricate at a time.

The switch to a replacement gate/charge trap cell design seems to have enabled a significant reduction in layer thickness: the 176L dies are 45µm thick, about the same total thickness as Micron's 64L floating-gate 3D NAND. A 16-die stacked package comes in at less than 1.5mm thick, suitable for most mobile and memory card use cases. As with previous generations of Micron 3D NAND, the chip's peripheral logic is mostly fabricated under the NAND memory cell stacks, a technology Micron calls "CMOS under Array" (CuA). This has repeatedly helped Micron deliver some of the smallest die sizes, and Micron estimates their 176L 512Gbit die is about 30% smaller than the best their competitors currently offer.

Related: Micron Follows Through, Buys Out Intel's Stake in NAND and 3D XPoint Joint Venture
SK Hynix Finishes 128-Layer 3D NAND, Plans 176-Layer 3D NAND
China's Yangtze Memory Technologies Develops 128-Layer 1.33 Tb QLC 3D NAND


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 26 2019, @10:23PM (21 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 26 2019, @10:23PM (#860271)

    Will this tech be marketed by SanDisk anytime soon?

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    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 26 2019, @10:32PM (20 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday June 26 2019, @10:32PM (#860276) Journal

      They don't need it:

      SK Hynix has announced it has finished development of its 128-layer 1 terabit 3D TLC NAND flash.

      Western Digital [SanDisk] Samples 96-Layer 3D QLC NAND with 1.33 Tb Per Die [soylentnews.org]

      We should be hearing about 1.5 Tb and greater NAND soon enough.

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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 26 2019, @10:56PM (17 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 26 2019, @10:56PM (#860284)

        Niiiice. Now, what's it really good for?

        Of course, my wife easily averages 200 photos per day on vacation and I have to constantly warn her about recording video, so a couple of these might last her for a short summer vacation.

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        • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday June 26 2019, @11:26PM (15 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday June 26 2019, @11:26PM (#860291) Journal

          It means cheaper and larger capacity SSDs, flash chips in phones and laptops, microSD cards, etc.

          Dies get stacked to make packages. So products that were using 512 Gb dies before need only half as many 1 Tb dies.

          The layer advances and string stacking can be applied to SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC, etc.

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          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 26 2019, @11:46PM (14 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 26 2019, @11:46PM (#860299)

            Other than my wife's cellphone, and maybe some drives that store lots and lots of video, I think I (personally) stopped needing bigger SSDs around 300GB. Cheaper is better, and, sure, next time I buy a big drive it will probably be at least 4TB just so I don't have to think about running out of space, but our 2TB drives (RAID 1 mirrored) haven't filled in the last 8 years since they replaced the previous whatever they were NAS.

            Ditto for work systems, we've got a sloppy dev team of about 30, working on a project for 2 years now, and our git repo is still less than 4GB, even if you bring in all the mechanical team's drawings and documentation we're still well under 5GB for this project. Sure, the whole site might utilize 10TB or so, but... that's a site with a couple hundred employees.

            I'm all for progress, and certainly big corporations have unlimited storage appetites, but at a personal level, it seems like 640GB is all that anyone (who doesn't hoard pirated videos) will ever need ;-)

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            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 27 2019, @12:51AM

              by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday June 27 2019, @12:51AM (#860316)

              ...it seems like 640GB is all that anyone...

              What! Come on now don't be so bloody...

              ...who doesn't hoard pirated videos...

              Oh. Ahem. Yes right then.

            • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 27 2019, @12:54AM (8 children)

              by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 27 2019, @12:54AM (#860317) Journal

              There's people out there that can fill 100 TB. Even without video in some cases. And since 8 TB HDDs are apparently in $130-150 territory, you can have that for under $2,000. But not SSDs, yet.

              I think it's likely that we'll see SSDs intersect with HDDs on $/TB at some point. HDDs have a path to 32, 50, and even 100 TB per 3.5" drive but are advancing too slow. Meanwhile, there will be active development into storage-class memory, aka post-NAND technologies aka universal memory. Hopefully, one of these will become superior to NAND in every way. This would solve the real problems of endurance and sequential speeds tanking once cache is filled (which are much worse with the cheaper QLC NAND).

              Fast forward 10-15 years. Whichever technology is in use, 1 petabyte drives are around (~128-170 TB SSDs are feasible with today's technology, so we're not far off). Probably even 10+ petabytes. And maybe we'll eventually get to exabytes in a consumer drive using some kind of holographic storage bricks.

              While it's definitely true that many users don't need even 1 TB today, if you can build it, people will find a way to use it. One use case is raw VR video. Target should be 16-32K resolution [soylentnews.org] (16K for VR180, 32K for complete 360-degree cameras) at 240 Hz (or even more??? this site [blurbusters.com] and others [valvesoftware.com] think 1000+ Hz is beneficial). Multiply that by multiple cameras for some event. You can probably think of moments in history that you would want captured like that. Make such cameras/storage cheap and ubiquitous to fit in smartphones, and it can happen going forward.

              You could also imagine virtual worlds (games and more) benefiting from massive storage. You've got games in the 50-100 GB range today that would quickly fill up a 1 TB drive. Let's see what can be done with 100x more per game. Given techniques like procedural generation, reused assets, etc., that amount seems hardly necessary, but it could allow complexity to be significantly increased and someone's artistic vision to look absolutely stunning.

              Science generates a lot of data. Astronomy in particular is generating petabytes of data, more of which is made freely available, and could be of use to amateurs. A nice upcoming example is the LSST [wikipedia.org], which will generate 1.28 petabytes per year. Future telescopes will have even larger storage requirements. Given the vast scale of the universe, it's possible for an amateur to get in on the action and make discoveries.

              Petabyte drives could hold massive AI training data sets. Or you could pair storage with 3D neuromorphic processors, and maybe you can have a "strong AI" at home. I might as well mention mind uploading at this point.

              There's a lot of fluffy stuff in this comment, but I'm sure that there will be absolutely gratuitous ways to fill 1+ PB consumer drives. And it will be appreciated, even if we're not the ones using it. It will also allow the surveillance state to store your every thought and action, but that's a given.

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              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:45AM (7 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:45AM (#860356)

                One use case is raw VR video

                Sure, for that barely perceptible quality improvement, let's balloon the storage size 10x.

                I'll get more excited about applications like this when the bandwidth in and out of the massive storage devices improves by a factor of 10x or more. It's already distressing to me how long it takes to mirror 1.5TB of data from one drive to another.

                Video stored at a datarate of ~1GB per hour is pretty good already, any more resolution would be like jacking up still photos from 6MP to 60MP - you're not going to really enjoy or notice it unless you're zooming in and focusing on a subset of the whole field of view, and going from 95% quality jpeg to full raw is more subtle still.

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                • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:06AM (6 children)

                  by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:06AM (#860366) Journal

                  True. We're gonna need post-NAND universal memory instead of NAND to keep the sustained write speeds up. QLC NAND kills that. Massively layered SLC NAND could be a good stopgap, but it seems like most of the consumers drives *must* use TLC or QLC.

                  I give justification for absurd resolution VR in the linked comment [soylentnews.org]. Sure, it's very large and not strictly necessary, but once the displays are available people will be able to judge it for themselves. Compression can be involved for viewers but it should probably be captured raw.

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                  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:26PM (5 children)

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:26PM (#860521)

                    Maybe it's because my eyes are old, but when I run my 4K displays at 1080p, it's very rare that I can perceive any difference at all - unless I've got my face so close to the screen that I can't see the whole thing.

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                    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:49PM (4 children)

                      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:49PM (#860536) Journal

                      That's exactly my proposal for VR.

                      You'll notice that my proposed 220 degrees horizontal, 150 degrees vertical field of view is more than what your two eyes can see if you're staring straight ahead. It takes into account peripheral vision from keeping your head locked but rotating your eyes in your sockets.

                      It would be kind of like shoving your face right in your display until you can't even see the sides. And while you may not be able to make pixels out even when doing that (I wouldn't know, I'm working with 768p where it is extremely obvious), the jump to 16K should ensure that no aliasing or other effects are noticeable. The screen door effect needs to be eliminated too, which could be done by either increasing resolution and/or decreasing pixel spacing with a better display technology.

                      On top of that, foveated rendering would help grease the wheels by only rendering a tiny potion of the screen in high resolution at any given millisecond, based on where your eyes are pointing. This applies to gaming/dynamically rendered graphics; it could be applied to precaptured or live video to lower the headset internal bandwidth burden, but isn't likely to lower the bandwidth needed to stream or livestream the video (you need the whole thing).

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                      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:16PM (1 child)

                        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:16PM (#860549)

                        The Microsoft VR headsets I've tried suffer from a horribly small field of view - definitely more immersive if you can get the peripheral covered as well, and at least "foveal" resolution anywhere your eyes can point.

                        While eye-tracking and foveated rendering can save power, I think the early software/systems development would go better if you just hook the thing up to a sufficient power (and cooling) source and blast full res across the whole 16K pixels. Once you've got that proven, trimming cost, weight, power can be an enhancement for the investors to back on the road to commercialization.

                        Assuming civilization doesn't fall in the meantime, 16K nanopitch displays are definitely coming, eventually. The group that has a killer app for them already developed and proven should profit nicely.

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                      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:31PM (1 child)

                        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:31PM (#860560)

                        One other thought - I used to be non-plussed by the idea of direct retinal projection, but as my corneas continue to stiffen and medical science continues to waffle about effective solutions for that, the idea starts to hold more and more appeal, and when you consider that the majority of the world's wealth is controlled by presbyopes...

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                        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:43PM

                          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:43PM (#860565) Journal

                          My view is that retinal projection will be the technique of choice for augmented reality glasses.

                          It would be interesting to see a combination of AR and VR using retinal projection. Flat device, possibly indistinguishable from glasses (still should have two front-facing cameras if possible), and you could manually add an opaque cover to switch from AR to VR mode.

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            • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:59PM (3 children)

              by Freeman (732) on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:59PM (#860577) Journal

              All I've got to say to you is, Video Games, and Pictures. Quite literally 90%+ of my storage is used up by those two things. When you're getting new games like Fallout 4 that require 40GB+ just for itself, you run out of space, really quickly. Then, there's the constant stream of photos/videos we take of our kiddo. Snapfish is great when you can get in on a sale for their photo books. Grandparents love the photo books.

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              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:00PM (2 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:00PM (#860603)

                I'll grant that video games can run heavy, 50GB+, but a 1TB drive can hold 20 such games... I suppose, again, if you're a hoarder and never want to uninstall anything, then sure. But, if you're really playing one of these 50GB+ games, that's going to consume hundreds of hours of your life x 20 should be years of entertainment... unless we get UBI and just smoke dope and play games all the time.

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                • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:08PM (1 child)

                  by Freeman (732) on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:08PM (#860611) Journal

                  Or maintain an unhealthy work/life/gaming ratio. Oh, there was supposed to be sleep in there somewhere, I think.

                  --
                  Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
                  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:56PM

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:56PM (#860630)

                    I definitely know people who have played 20+ "big games", and I definitely know people who have played games 60+ hours a week, but, even them, they tend to stay with 3 or 4 favorite titles, at most. I supposed with cheap massive SSDs that behavior may change in the future.

                    I was also marveling at why Chinese cell phones are starting to ship with 64GB standard and often much more, until I remembered: games.

                    --
                    🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:54PM

          by Freeman (732) on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:54PM (#860575) Journal

          Professional photographers use smaller say 4GB/16GB cards, and swap them out often. That way, when you inevitably screw up one card, you don't lose Everything. Also, you want to replace those cards on a semi-regular basis.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @07:06PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @07:06PM (#860645)

        One thing about this is that TLC is better in almost every aspect than QLC, including much better endurance. The biggest drawback of TLC vs QLC, is that QLC has higher density.

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