Micron has begun mass production of 176-layer 3D NAND

A leading provider of memory and storage solutions, Micron Technology 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.

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.

Micron’s 176-layer NAND offers improved quality of service (QoS2), a critical design criterion for data center SSDs. This can accelerate the handling of 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. 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’s 176-layer triple-level cell (TLC) 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 in 2021.