IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Spring 2016 - 22

nearing production: 3-D XPoint technology promises both new levels of
storage performance and massive
main-memory solutions. Memory technologies are the enablers of new computing applications, but, at the time of
their invention, our ability to see the
new applications they will enable is
cloudy, at best. What killer application
will be enabled by 3-D XPoint technology? Time will tell-but the memory
industry will make it happen.

References

Figure 10: An M.2 form factor solid-state drive. (Photo courtesy of Micron Technology, Inc.)

Micron entered the flash market in
2005 in a joint venture with the Intel
Corporation. The Intel/Micron Flash
Technologies (IMFT) partnership became
a new model for Micron's growth.

What's Next?
The history of memory is replete with
cases of short-term success, promises
that never quite panned out, and outright failures. But it is also a story of

Today, all high-volume commercial DRAM
devices are built with the stacked-capacitor
technology, while trench capacitors remain
in use for certain embedded DRAM processes.
Today, NAND flash is a US$30+
billion business. Technology development is focused on getting more
storage from each individual cell in
the form of multilevel-cell (2 b/cell)
and triple-level-cell (3 b/cell) devices
and rushing quickly toward threedimensional (3-D) NAND, where the
strings of NAND cells are constructed
vertically, packing dozens of cells into
a tiny X-Y region.

S P R I N G 2 0 16

rapid innovation and growth. Today,
we largely take for granted the nearinfinite endurance and error-free
performance of DRAM. And we are all
using impossibly small products, like
smartphones and tablets, that NAND
(at the other end of the memory hierarchy) enables.
Now, a new memory technology,
with performance like that of DRAM
and the nonvolatility of NAND, is

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

[1] J. A. Rajchman, "The Selectron-A tube
for selective electrostatic storage," Math.
Tables Other Aids Comput., vol. 2, no. 20,
pp. 359-361, 1947.
[2] [Online]. Available: http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/tape.
html
[3] [Online]. Available: http://www.computerhistor y.org/revolution/memor y-storage/8/252
[4] Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation,
"Memory System," U.S. Patent 2 629 827,
Feb. 1953.
[5] K. C. Redmond and T. M. Smith, Project Whirlwind: The History of a Pioneer
Computer. Bedford, MA: Digital Press,
1980.
[6] [Online]. Available: http://www.northlandjukeboxes.com/pages/jkpages/cburbv200.html
[7] [Online]. Available: http://www.pcworld.
com/article/127105/article.html
[8] [Online]. Available: http://www.pcworld.
c o m / a r t i c l e / 2 6 91 3 9 2 / n e x t - d r a m bust-w ill-slow-dow n- chip -ma rket-in2016-gartner-says.html

About the Author
Dean Klein is vice president of
Advanced Memory Solutions at Micron
Technology. He joined Micron in January 1999, after having held several
leadership positions at Micron Electronics, Inc., including executive vice
president of product development
and chief technical officer. He also
cofounded and served as president
of PC Tech, Inc., previously a wholly
owned subsidiary of Micron Electronics, from its inception in 1984. He
earned his B.S.E.E. and M.E.E. degrees,
both in electrical engineering, from
the University of Minnesota.

http://history-com http://www.puter.com/ModernComputer/Basis/tape http://www.computer http://www.history.org/revolution/memory-stor http://www.north http://www.landjukeboxes.com/pages/jkpages/cbur http://www.pcworld http://www

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Spring 2016