Legit Memory Reviews
Inside Intel and Micron's 25nm NAND Fab - IMFT
| Manufacturer: | Intel |
| Product: | IMFT Fab in Lehi Utah |
| Date: | Mon, Feb 01, 2010 - 08:00 AM |
| Written By: | Nathan Kirsch - |
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Sub-25nm Process Technology
The Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) is an industry workgroup made up of more than 80 companies that build, design-in, or enable NAND Flash memory. They are dedicated to simplifying NAND Flash integration into consumer electronic products, computing platforms, and any other application that requires solid state mass storage. We define standardized component-level interface specifications as well as connector and module form factor specifications for NAND Flash.
As we previously mentioned, the 25nm NAND process supports the ONFi 2.2 source synchronous interface, delivering up to 200 MB/s in performance. Development is underway for ONFi 3.0, which supports double data rate speeds at 400MT/s (Mega-Transfers). The ONFI 3.0 specification is being designed with simplicity in mind for NAND-based devices when working with flash controllers and is backwards compatible with previous ONFI standards. ONFI has also begun work on a new technology specification called EZNAND, which stands for Error Correction Code (ECC) Zero NAND. EZ-NAND will remove the burden of the host controller to keep pace with the fast changing ECC requirements of NAND technology. In today’s NAND implementations, the host controller must assume responsibility for all NAND management functions, including block management, wear leveling, and ECC. With ECC being almost solely dependent on the NAND die and not the system, EZ-NAND will alleviate the issue of controller manufacturers having to implement and keep up with NAND ECC requirements. As you can see plenty NAND has room to grow in the future when it comes to performance and features.
IMFT also showed off that they have sub-25nm process technology that they are working on in an R&D fab in a different location and that the initial results look very promising. They covered part of the image as they didn't want competitors to see exactly what they are doing.
As you can see NAND is scaling very nicely and is approaching atomic dimensions as you can see from the presentation slide above. This is good news though as it means capacities for our devices is about ready to increase and hopefully prices will continue to drop on NAND. This is music to the ears of the enthusiast and gamer communities as it means that we will see larger SSDs coming to market with hopefully better performance, reliability and pricing.
What can you expect in terms of SSDs coming to market? Well, our friends at Micron said that seven controller companies confirmed micron's 25nm 8gb is the first MLC product they have ever tested that will meet SD class-10 performance with a single die. That means they passed device testing (command/functional testing reported no issues). Today you have to do it with two die or SLC to meet Class-10 performance. They also said that 25nm 8GB MLC will obviously coming first, but that 2GB and 4GB 25nm NAND will be coming out later in the year. Our sources tell us that Intel will be coming out with 160GB, 320GB, and 600GB 25nm based SSDs later in the year. Not to be out done, Micron is looking at 512GB and 1TB SSDs as well. We also heard that a 512GB 1.8" SSD is now possible thanks to the 25nm NAND, which is impressive. Basically, we will see faster drives and there will be a convergence as some people don't need 256GB or 512GB, so we will see smaller capacity drives at better price points.
Being able to go inside the IMFT fab in Lehi, Utah was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience that really opened our eyes on the whole manufacturing process. Bring able to see 300mm 25nm wafers being produced is something not many people will ever get a chance to see and we were thankful to be one of the few to have access to see such an incredible process take place before our eyes. We hope you enjoyed the peak into the process as much as we did!
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