Micron, Sun partner on SLC NAND tech development

Micron Technology Inc. has worked with Sun Microsystems Inc. to develop a new single-level cell (SLC) enterprise NAND technology that extends the lifespan of flash-based storage for enterprise applications. The result of the collaboration has yielded production devices capable of achieving 1 million write cycles, a milestone that will help prepare the industry for new uses in solid state storage set to come from Sun, Micron and others. The company claims that the new technology delivers the highest write/erase cycling capability of any NAND technology available on the market.

"Micron is pleased to work with Sun on this landmark achievement, enabling the use of flash in new applications that were previously not possible because of the inherent write/erase cycle limitations of standard SLC and MLC [multilevel cell] NAND," said Brian Shirley, VP of Micron's memory group. "We expect this technology to revolutionize the enterprise storage hierarchy and be adopted by a wide range of transaction-intensive applications, including solid-state drives [SSDs] and storage systems, disk caching, as well as networking and industrial applications."

"As the market for enterprise SSD flash storage technology matures, leaders like Sun combine technological innovation and next-generation open source software to deliver flash-based storage products that offer radical simplicity and breakthrough performance at a fraction of the cost of traditional disk-based storage systems," said Michael Cornwell, lead technologist for flash memory at Sun. "Sun has worked closely with Micron on the design of this next-generation NAND technology to achieve this milestone and to ensure customers are able to leverage next-generation flash technology now and into the future."

Micron is now sampling its Enterprise NAND in densities up to 32Gbits. Volume production is expected in Q1 09. Micron also plans to introduce both SLC and MLC enterprise versions on its 34nm NAND process early next year.