The Fundamentals of NAND Flash Memory: Technology for tomorrow’s fourth industrial revolution

With the rise of the mobile-centric era, data-driven applications such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain, and so on are ever increasing. As these applications create unprecedented amounts of data, the technologies used for collecting, processing, and storing them well are becoming more crucial. According to the research in [1], the amount of data we generate has a growth rate of 2.5 times per every four years, and the total amount of data will reach 175 ZB by 2025. Such a “Big Bang” of data means a tremendous demand on storage systems; it is evident that high-capacity and high-performance storage systems will play a key role. Therefore, along with this trend, NAND flash memory technology has continued to evolve to meet high demands. This article covers key technologies for high-density/high-performance NAND flash memory.