The transition from 2D to 3D NAND Flash memory has been one of the most important advances in the storage world in recent years, and was also key to the development and creation of A much cheaper SSD with a larger capacity. Thanks to its advantages, it has become the industry standard and is constantly evolving and improving.

I remind you, in case anyone is lost, that 2D NAND Flash memory is integrated horizontally, which makes it take up more space on the PCB. This, for understandable reasons, complicates and makes the construction of storage units more expensive. With NAND Flash memory in 3D sused vertically stacked, which reduces the required PCB space and makes SSD design simpler and cheaper.

3D stacked NAND Flash memory can be of different types (SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC and PLC) and can also be manufactured with different layers. The greater the number of layers higher storage density and theoretically lower price production. As I said, 3D stacked multi-layer memory chip designs are what allowed us to buy very cheap SSDs today, and their evolution will allow us to buy even cheaper, higher capacity units in the future.

The next “grail” in the world of storage based on NAND Flash memory will be 1000’s of layer designs. Samsung has already confirmed that it is working on completing this design by 2030 at the latest, and Kioxia has said that it hopes to have it completed in 2027. To give you an idea of ​​how important this leap is, just tell you that , today Kioxia is preparing for Use 218-layer chips.

The truth is that this is a very ambitious goal, perhaps too ambitious. Talking about chips with 400 layers is impressive these days, and Kioxia is willing to raise the bar by betting on Density of 100 Gb per square millimeter. Today we are in the range of 20 to 30 Gb per square millimeter, and ten years ago we were barely reaching 1 Gb per square millimeter.

Cheaper SSD, but what capacity are we talking about?

Thanks to the 1000-layer NAND Flash memory and this increase in memory density per square millimeter, we were able to see the units SSD up to 20 TB storage capacity with approximate cost between 300 and 350 euros. It sounds good, maybe too good to be true, but let’s be honest, ten years ago we wouldn’t have dared to imagine that it would be possible to get a high-performance SSD with a capacity of 1 TB for 50 euros or less.

What I mean by this is that just because it seems impossible to us today, doesn’t mean it will be so in a few years. You already know that technology advances very quickly and that some of these advances make it possible What seemed impossible to us yesterday is very easy to achieve today.. Kioxia aims to achieve this goal by 2027, so in theory the changes in the SSD sector should begin to take effect between the end of this year and mid-2028.