What Is 3D NAND Memory and Storage?

A few years back, hard disk drives were driven out of the market by a faster, reliable and quieter flash memory based Solid State Storage Devices. In recent past, biggest jump is 3D NAND flash. So what exactly it is? Let's have a look.

What is 3D NAND?

Talking in layman's terms, the 3D NAND is just a stacking of memory chips on top of each other, where some manufacturers call this V (Vertical) NAND. This will make the device faster, hold more information, run more efficiently and use less energy. This was launched at first by Samsung.

A single 3D NAND device consists of multiple levels, which are stacked and connected using tiny vertical channels. Today's leading-edge 3D NAND parts are 32- and 48-layer devices.

Further, the 3D NAND is more difficult to make than previous 2D NAND which is a planar structure. When compared to 2D NAND, 3D NAND lowers costs, reduces power consumption, boosts reliability, and provides higher data write performance.

Some companies including Western Digital (WD) has started making the 3rd-gen 3D NAND flash chips, with an increase in the number of layers from 48 to 64 and will allow it to double capacity.

Having said that, the downside of the 3D NAND is that it requires an unbelievable level of accuracy to make it since each column needs to be perfectly aligned so that the memory blocks are still in a continuous series.