Just when you thought things were starting to calm down with the news surrounding 25nm NAND, Intel and Micron have now just announced new, and even smaller, 20nm NAND. Claiming 30 to 40 percent reduction in size over 25nm flash, the new 20nm process will allow for far greater capacities, lowered costs, as well as another step down in write cycles.
Just when you thought things were starting to calm down with the news surrounding 25nm NAND, Intel and Micron have now just announced new, and even smaller, 20nm NAND. Claiming 30 to 40 percent reduction in size over 25nm flash, this new 20nm process will allow for far greater capacities, lowered costs, as well as another step down in write cycles.
Currently the only pre-production samples that exist are in the 8GB size, measuring just 118mm. Besides the larger capacity mainstream 2.5-inch SSDs that might come out using this newer, smaller NAND; the main goal is to fit more capacity into ever-smaller devices. The other advantage is keeping some devices like smartphones at the same capacity, but allowing more physical space for a larger screen or increased battery capacity. In either of those two cases it’s trading off the size of flash to allow for greater development in other areas.
To give you an idea of just how small the new flash is, Intel will be showing off a 16GB device with scalable sizes up to 128GB, that is smaller than a U.S. postage stamp.
For the average buyer, this news shouldn’t have much effect on what you see in devices right now. Currently SSD manufacturers are still making the transition from 32/34nm NAND down to 25nm, with no one currently talking about plans of moving to 20nm just yet. The main thing to take away from this is progress is still happening behind the scenes when it comes to SSDs, with larger capacities, lower prices, and newer configurations always coming out.
