Flash memory is over and done, right? It’s time to move on to new storage-class memory technologies. Not so fast, says the flash memory industry, as it debuts new advancements that prove Flash has plenty of life left. Last week, we reported on Sandisk’s High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) memory, and while this week’s announcement isn’t as exotic, it’s arguably even more exciting: new flash memory that supports an interface speed as high as 4.8 Gbps. That’s 33% faster than anything on the market right now.
The new memory, which Kioxia and Sandisk are calling “10th generation 3D Flash memory,” is still the same familiar flash memory, but it uses a number of advancements to improve performance and efficiency. The press release names these advancements: CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) manufacturing, a Toggle DDR6.0 interface, the Separate Command Address protocol, and Power Isolated Low-Tapped Termination (PI-LTT) technology.
Folks who follow storage technology are probably thinking, “wait, the current-gen is 8th-gen, so what happened to 9th-gen?” Well, the companies say that it’s still coming too, and while the 9th-gen flash won’t benefit from the Toggle DDR6.0 interface, the SCA protocol, or the PI-LTT technology, it will be fabricated using the CBA method, which the companies say will reduce manufacturing costs compared to the 8th-generation tech.
As you’d expect, Kioxia and Sandisk executives are hyping up the new flash memory for use with AI. It is true that AI is pushing out massive amounts of data against ever-tightening power constraints, so these advancements are certainly welcome. Hopefully the new 9th- and 10th-gen flash memory can bring down the prices of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, finally.