Micron played host to members of the media today to discuss new enterprise products and advances in NAND flash technology. At the event, several new products were introduced, but only one was glossed over–the upcoming MX300.
Until today’s event, we expected Crucial to release 3D NAND flash in a consumer SSD around the Computex time frame (early June). Micron jumped the gun and preannounced the new Crucial MX300 that will feature Micron’s new 256Gbit 3D NAND flash. Yields must be quite strong for the new flash that has already entered production. According to Micron, the new MX300 will come to market in April, a full two months before we expected the new product.
As mentioned, Micron only glossed over the information, but we know Micron’s 3D NAND flash uses 32 stacked layers to reach 256Gbit density. This is twice the current density of 16nm planar NAND density per die. The new flash should also cut the manufacturing costs in half. The existing 16nm and new 3D NAND share the same wafer size but the new part should double the density.
The new flash should allow Crucial to achieve 2 TB of capacity easily when paired with the new Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2258 controller. We expect to see large SSD price reductions once Micron’s 3D flash takes hold and becomes the standard for SSDs in mid to late 2016.
