nand Flash Memory and Its Role in Storage Architectures

• Published in: Proceedings of the IEEE Vol. 96; no. 11; pp. 1864 - 1874
• Main Authors: Sanvido, Marco A. A., Chu, Frank R., Kulkarni, Anand, Selinger, Robert
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.11.2008; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Architecture; Computer architecture; Costs; Density; Digital cameras; Disk drives; Displacement; EPROM; Flash memory (computers); Hard disks; Memory architecture; memory architectures; Pricing; Random access memory; Read-write memory; semiconductor memories; Semiconductor memory; Silicon; Storage capacity; Trends; memory architectures; Disk drives; semiconductor memories; hard disks
• ISSN: 0018-9219; 1558-2256
• DOI: 10.1109/JPROC.2008.2004319

This papers reviews the increasing role of NAND flash memory in storage architectures. NAND flash has enjoyed a phenomenal growth rate in storage capacities as well as a steady decline in pricing during the past few years. These developments have enabled NAND to enter and possibly change or displace some traditional storage architectures. However, besides cost, NAND flash memory has some reliability and performance issues that will slow its adoption into all storage architectures. This paper will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this technology and the implications to the current and possible future storage architectures. Moreover, we will analyze NAND flash future density and costs trends and compare them with the traditional hard disk drive.