

World's First 128 Gb NAND Device - Dreadnought
http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2011/12/06/intel-micron-extend-nand-flash-technology-leadership-with-introduction-of-worlds-first-128gb-nand-device-and-mass-production-of-64gb-20nm-nand

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dangrossman
> first monolithic 128Gb part can store 1 terabit of data in a single
> fingertip-size package

This gave me one of those rare "I'm finally living in the future" feelings

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Cushman
I don't see what makes this qualitatively more amazing than storing a terabyte
in something the size of a wallet... At this point, we're comparing apples and
chestnuts.

If you don't frequently feel like you're living in the future, you're living
in the past :)

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DanBC
I don't know if "no moving parts" makes it more or less impressive. Imagining
a head float on a layer of air that's 0.0125 um thick, with electro magnetic
heads always impresses me.

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sliverstorm
Well, it's not like the hard drive has to work to get that layer of air. It's
just a consequence of physics, right?

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whimsy
Yes, but the fact that we can exploit that - and that we use the same physics
for read heads as those we use for calculating flight - is pretty impressive,
is it not?

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Lagged2Death
I wonder how many erase/write cycles it can sustain. Interesting that the
press release doesn't mention it. Previous generations had already descended
as low as 3,000 cycles.

I realize wear-leveling makes it a non-issue in many applications, but I do
wonder just how flimsy a memory we'll wind up settling for, too.

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cuu508
AnandTech says the new 20nm part is designed for the same 3K-5K as 25nm.
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/5193/intel-and-micron-imft-
ann...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/5193/intel-and-micron-imft-announce-
worlds-first-128gb-20nm-mlc-nand)

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orijing
This is enormously impressive. But what cost? The press release claims "low
cost", but fails to specify a concrete number.

If this can be produced cheaply, I can imagine newer laptops, especially those
with constricting form factors like the Air or other ultrabooks, using just
this and skip the entire SATA interface altogether. Perhaps even bundle the
storage with the motherboard for better throughput.

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reitzensteinm
The cost per mm^2 of wafer has more or less stayed constant for the last 30
years, so it should be cheaper to produce per gigabit. Though there might be
an initial spike in price due to high demand and low early yields.

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DanBC
Are we going to see a lot more of this kind of thing with floods in Thailand
causing shortages in traditional drives?

I'm surprised, after the Japanese Sumitomo Resin Factory Fire[1], that a
single point of failure still exists in the computer hardware supply chain.

[1]
([http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_n1971_v39/ai_...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_n1971_v39/ai_14145152/))

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ChuckMcM
It is a very cool accomplishment. And even though it has some of the 'hard
disk' disease that denser flash is often slower than less dense flash, I'm
less worried than I was before about how fragile flash is relative to hard
disks.

