Micron Ships World's First 232-Layer NAND, Further Strengthening Technology Leadership

Cutting-edge innovations deliver the highest performance and wafer density TLC NAND, all in the industry’s smallest package

Shanghai, July 27, 2022 - Micron Technology, Inc. today announced that it has mass-produced the world's first 232-layer NAND . It uses industry-leading innovative technologies to bring unprecedented performance to storage solutions. Compared with previous generations of NAND, this product has the industry's highest area density, higher capacity and energy efficiency, and can provide excellent support for data-intensive applications such as clients and the cloud.

“ Micron’s 232-layer NAND is a watershed moment in storage innovation as it is the first to scale the 3D NAND stack to over 200 layers in production,” said Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of technology and products at Micron. “This breakthrough is the result of a broad range of innovations, including advanced process capabilities to create high aspect ratio structures, advances in new materials, and further design innovations based on Micron’s market-leading 176-layer NAND technology.”

Leading technology creates excellent performance

As the amount of data in the world increases, customers must expand storage capacity and improve performance while reducing energy consumption and meeting stricter requirements for environmental sustainability. Micron's 232-layer NAND technology provides the necessary high-performance storage to support advanced solutions and real-time services required for data center and automotive applications, while also enabling fast response and immersive experiences on mobile devices, consumer electronics and PCs. Micron also achieved the industry's fastest NAND input/output (I/O) speed (2.4GB per second) on this technology node to meet the needs of low latency and high throughput for data-intensive workloads such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, unstructured databases and real-time analysis, and cloud computing. This I/O speed is 50% faster than the maximum speed supported by Micron on the 176-layer node2. Compared with the previous generation, Micron's 232-layer NAND has a write bandwidth of up to 100% per die and a read bandwidth of at least 75%2. These advantages improve the performance and energy efficiency of SSD and embedded NAND solutions.

In addition, Micron's 232-layer NAND is the world's first six-plane TLC mass-produced NAND3. Compared with other TLC flash memories, this product has the largest number of planes on each die3, and each plane has independent data reading capabilities. High I/O speeds and low read and write latency, as well as Micron's six-plane architecture, enable it to provide first-class data transfer capabilities in a variety of configurations. This structure ensures that write and read command conflicts are reduced, driving improvements in system-level service quality.

Micron's 232-layer NAND is the first mass-produced technology to support NV-LPDDR4. NV-LPDDR4 is a low-voltage interface that reduces the energy consumption per bit of transmission by at least 30% compared to previous I/O interfaces. As a result, the 232-layer NAND solution achieves a balance of high performance and low power consumption, making it ideal for mobile applications as well as deployment in data centers and the intelligent edge. In addition, the interface is backward compatible and supports legacy controllers and systems.

The compact form factor of the 232-layer NAND also allows for design flexibility for customers while achieving the highest TLC density per square millimeter ever (14.6 Gb/mm2)3. Its areal density is 35% to 100% higher than competing TLC products on the market today3. It also features a new 11.5mm x 13.5mm package that is 28% smaller than previous generations2, making it the smallest high-density NAND on the market today3. Its small size and high density allow it to take up less board space for a variety of deployments.

Next-generation NAND drives innovation across the market

“Micron continues to be the first to market with higher-layer NAND, enabling longer battery life and more compact storage in mobile devices, improving cloud computing performance, and accelerating AI model training, enabling long-term technology leadership,” said Sumit Sadana, Micron’s chief business officer. “Micron’s 232-layer NAND sets a new benchmark for end-to-end storage innovation, driving digital transformation across multiple industries.”

The development of 232-layer NAND is the result of Micron's industry-leading R&D and process technology advances. These breakthrough technologies will help customers create more innovative solutions in areas such as data centers, thin and light notebooks, new mobile devices and the intelligent edge.

Availability

Micron's 232-layer NAND is now in mass production at its Singapore wafer fab and is first being shipped to customers in the form of components through Crucial's SSD consumer product line. Other product information and supply status will be announced later.

Micron's NAND Center of Excellence in Singapore has been included in the World Economic Forum's Global Lighthouse Factory Network for its outstanding operational capabilities in the field of smart manufacturing. Advanced AI tools, intelligent control systems, and predictive capabilities enable Micron to accelerate product development, enhance product quality, and improve yield faster, thereby shortening time to market.