Last week’s Flash Memory Summit ended with a session titled “The top 10 things you need to know about Flash memory today. Richard Goering summarized the panel in his blog titled “Flash Memory Panelists Challenge Conventional Thinking About NAND and SSDs” but I thought it would be fun to compile that information into a longer list. So for your amusement, here are the top 21 things you don’t know about Flash memory based on presentation from Andy Tomlin, VP of Solid state Development at Western Digital; Jered Floyd, CTO of Permabit; and Jim Handy, Chief Analyst at Objective Analysis:
- It takes a minimum of two years to develop firmware for a new SSD and if you think it takes less, you’ll make poor decisions along the way. –Tomlin
- Flash is already cheaper than disk. –Floyd
- Data optimization is a requirement. –Floyd
- You shouldn’t build it yourself. –Floyd
- The end of the road is not in sight. –Floyd
- Enterprise is a quality grade, not a technology. –Floyd
- Flash device vendors will vertically integrate—or die. –Floyd
- Hybrid drives are nothing new. –Floyd
- Consumers will be all flash. –Floyd
- Data centers will all adopt Flash. –Floyd, Handy
- Flash will save the world. –Floyd
- NAND prices will not rebound until mid 2013. –Handy
- New controllers will enable enterprise-class SSDs based on TLC Flash. –Handy
- NAND-aware software is the next high-growth market. –Handy
- Ultrabooks will drive NAND Flash cache use in PCs and notebooks. –Handy
- The SSD market will split into multiple segments. –Handy
- Alternative (new) memories will displace very little NOR Flash. –Handy
- PC SSD revenues will decline with the adoption of Flash cache. –Handy
- Few will realize it when Flash reaches its scaling limit. –Handy
- The current SSD form factor and interface will eventually disappear. –Handy
- Flash will eventually scale to 10nm and then be replaced in 6 to 8 years. –Handy
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