Micron Unveils ClearNAND Flash Memory Devices

Micron Technology, Inc. introduced a portfolio of high-capacity flash memory products that will lengthen the life of NAND for years to come.

By integrating the error management techniques in the same NAND package, the new Micron ClearNAND devices alleviate the challenges traditionally found in NAND process shrinks. Micron’s ClearNAND portfolio extends the opportunities for NAND process generations to be used in enterprise servers, tablet PCs, portable media players, and dozens of other consumer applications.

"The pace of NAND scaling is largely responsible for the incredible growth and success the industry has seen to date, and for helping to create new flash-based storage solutions," said Glen Hawk, vice president of Micron’s NAND Solutions Group. "While the advantages in NAND scaling are evident, so are the challenges with the technology becoming increasingly more difficult to manage. Micron’s ClearNAND products remove this management burden for our customers and extend the life of this all-important technology."

Micron’s ClearNAND products utilize a traditional raw NAND interface, and include new features that are optimized for high-capacity and high-performance applications. As the industry progresses past 20-nanometer (nm), flash management gets more challenging because the amount of bit errors increases dramatically, impacting NAND performance and reliability. By tightly coupling the error management with the NAND devices in a single package, Micron’s customers can continue to take advantage of the capacity and low cost-per-bit flash memory solution. Micron’s ClearNAND products are first designed using its 25nm multi-level cell (MLC) process, and are available in two versions: Standard and Enhanced.

Micron’s Standard ClearNAND products come in 8 to 32 gigabyte (GB) packages, and are intended to remove the error correction code (ECC) burden from the host processor with minimal protocol changes compared to raw NAND. The Standard ClearNAND portfolio is targeted for portable media players and other consumer electronic devices.

Micron’s Enhanced ClearNAND products, in addition to removing the ECC burden from the host processor, also provide new enterprise specific features to enable high-capacity designs, delivering performance and reliability. Capacities are available in 16 to 64GB packages. The Enhanced ClearNAND products are targeted at enterprise and computing applications, and allows leading-edge 25nm MLC NAND to be used in these applications.

Both Micron Standard ClearNAND and Enhanced ClearNAND products are available.

"As the industry continues to reduce costs by moving to smaller and smaller geometries, the challenge has been to maintain equivalent system performance and endurance as the previous process generation," said Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights. "With its ClearNAND portfolio, Micron has developed a solution that overcomes these challenges, enabling customers to utilize the most advanced NAND technology in even the most demanding applications."