Toshiba and Sandisk today announced they developed world's first 15nm NAND memory. Toshiba and Sandisk are in the joint venture Flash Forward together. The NAND will likely end up in upcoming SSDs, including OCZ, Toshiba and Sandisk branded SSDs.
The 15nm NAND uses many advanced process innovations and cell-design solutions to scale the chips along both axes. SanDisk calls this their All-Bit-Line (ABL) architecture, which contains proprietary programming algorithms and multi-level data storage management schemes, Toshiba hasn't mentioned any fancy name in their press release.
According to the companies the NAND will perform similar to the current second generation 19nm NAND when it comes to writing data. However data transfers should be 1.3 times faster due to usage of a high speed interface.
Toshiba also announced it will develop controllers for embedded NAND flash memory in parallel and introduce 3-bit-per-cell products for smartphones and tablets. It will also extend application to notebook PCs by developing a controller compliant with solid state drives (SSD). Last year Toshiba also acquired SSD manufacturer OCZ which continues to sell SSDs under the OCZ brand name.
Mass production of the 15nm NAND will start at the end of this month in a Japanese factory of Toshiba, where it replaces the current 19nm second generation NAND produced there.
Smaller NAND is cheaper to produce as more chips can be made from a single wafer. As the major factor of the price of a SSD is the NAND, SSDs will become cheaper.
