“NAND flash memory has surpassed hard disk drive (HDD) technology in areal density for the first time, according to a new report from a market research firm,” Lucas Mearian reports for Computerworld.
“During a presentation at the 2016 IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco last week, Micron shared data showing NAND flash has moved past HDDs in areal density, according to Coughlin Associates,” Mearian reports. “Micron revealed it had demonstrated areal densities in its laboratories of up to 2.77Tbpsi for its 3D NAND. That compares with the densest HDDs of about 1.3Tbpsi.”
“Because of 3D NAND’s greater density, manufacturers such as Micron and Intel are opening new plants or are revamping older NAND facilities to increase their 3D production, which is driving prices down,” Mearian reports. “According to a recent report by DRAMeXchange, a division of market research firm TrendForce, the plummeting prices of SSDs have also driven their recent adoption in laptops. This year, SSDs will be used in around one-quarter of laptops. Next year, SSDs are expected to be in 31% of new consumer laptops, and by 2017 they’ll be in 41%, according to DRAMeXchange senior manager Alan Chen.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This is an important inflection point for the storage industry.