Samsung Talks 1 Petabyte SSD: Thousands of Layers, Packaging Innovations
Because the world’s largest provider of 3D NAND when it comes to each income and bit shipments, Samsung commonly makes use of the most recent manufacturing nodes to extend the bit density and capacities of its stable state drives. On the China Flash Reminiscence Market Summit, the corporate stated that the capability of a single SSD may improve to 1 petabyte (PB or 1,024 terabytes), nevertheless it’s clear that this may not occur in a single day.
In accordance with a report from A&SMag, Samsung expects 3D NAND to proceed scaling each bodily and logically; Because of this NAND flash cell sizes will shrink and the variety of layers will improve, so every layer can retailer extra information. Additionally, Samsung envisions extra superior packaging applied sciences for 3D NAND ICs. The corporate acknowledged on the occasion that bodily, logical and packaging improvements will improve the capability of a drive to 1PB over the following ten years.
Samsung has lengthy provided a number of the business’s highest capability SSDs. The corporate was among the many first to mass-produce a 15.36TB drive in 2016, adopted by a 3D TLC-based 30.72TB drive in 2017. speak about extraordinarily excessive costs for the patron), however those that want numerous flash storage can reap the benefits of these spacious drives. Samsung additionally launched the 64TB SSD in 2019 after which showcased the 128TB prototype SSD primarily based on 3D QLC NAND in 2021, though these units have but to enter mass manufacturing.
In truth, in contrast to a few of its friends within the business, Samsung makes use of 3D QLC NAND reminiscence fairly conservatively and is at the moment “exploring methods to deliver QLC expertise into the mainstream” by revamping its controllers.
Nonetheless, Samsung appears to acknowledge that bodily scaling as much as ~1000 layers per 3D NAND gadget (downsizing NAND cells and rising the variety of NAND layers) alone shouldn’t be sufficient to rapidly improve the bit density of flash reminiscence and thus logical scaling (variety of saved bits per cell). improve) is required.
Not like Samsung, Kioxia (previously Toshiba) is especially vocal about logical scaling of NAND. In 2019, Kioxia was the primary 3D NAND producer to debate the event of PLC (penta-level cell) 3D NAND reminiscence able to storing 5 bits per cell (bpc). Kioxia’s crew of scientists and engineers watched an illustration of working 3D HLC (hexa stage cell) 3D NAND reminiscence storing 6 bpc in 2021. The corporate even expressed the opinion that 8 bpc OLC (octa-level cell) 3D NAND reminiscence is feasible. .
To retailer six bits per cell, this NAND cell wants to carry 64 voltage states, whereas 8 bpc OLC 3D NAND wants to carry 256 voltage states. Growing the variety of bits per cell presents quite a few challenges for producers.
First, they need to establish the right supplies that may retailer 64 or 256 voltage states and likewise distinguish between them in order that they don’t intervene with one another. Second, they want to have the ability to produce excessive volumes utilizing such supplies. Third, for such a 3D NAND they should handle temperatures, however this turns into more and more troublesome because the variety of bits per cell will increase. Lastly, they should develop extraordinarily advanced ECC algorithms for 3D HLC and 3D OLC NAND reminiscence, and such controllers would require important processing energy. Because of this, the price of such controllers can offset the advantages of logical scaling of 3D NAND.
Samsung will face many of those challenges on its option to enabling 1 petabyte SSDs over the following decade, however the firm is not sharing additional particulars on the way it hopes to realize this feat.
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