KIOXIA throws party, celebrates 35th anniversary of NAND flash memory

Can you believe it has been 35 years since the creation of NAND flash technology? We've come a gigantic distance in that time... not just in the cost of NAND flash, but how many more facets NAND flash crawled into when it comes to the foundation of our very lives.

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Back when you visited libraries to get information in the 1990s, the cost of storage was $10,000+ per GB (gigabyte) of storage and the die density was 4Mb. There was around 1/16 of a song could be stored on a 4Mb NAND die, and 1/8 of a photo could be stored on the same NAND die.

But today... well, we're looking at around $0.20 per GB (gigabyte) of storage and die density of 1.44Tb. Back in the 90s we had just 1/16 of a song on 4Mb NAND die, we now have 20,000 songs on 1.33Tb NAND die, while 1/8 of a photo was all you could store on 4Mb NAND in the 90s you can store a huge 39,000 photos on a 1.33Tb NAND die.

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Back in 1987, no one could've predicted the impact that NAND flash technology would have on the world. In just 35 years we've seen the NAND flash market grow to a huge $70 billion, and when it comes to die density we've gone from 4Mb to 1.33TB -- a mind-boggling 333,000x increase -- absolutely mammoth, all in 35 years.

Scott Nelson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for KIOXIA America, Inc. said: "Flash memory is a game-changer that continues to stand the test of time. Imagine what's to come - will the vision of smart cities be realized? Will truly autonomous cars take us from place to place? Whatever the future holds, KIOXIA will continue to lead the way forward, investing in and evolving the technology that makes storage densities higher and costs lower. The sky is the limit for flash memory, and the next wave of applications that will further enrich our lives is just around the corner. In some ways, we're just getting started."

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You might not have heard of KIOXIA, but their products are in your pockets, your houses, your cars, your consoles, everywhere, and in everything. Joe Unsworth, Research Vice President of Gartner said: "flash memory technology innovation continues to thrive enabling its proliferation from consumer devices, to mobile computing and now permeating data center environments".