Micron today took to its virtual briefing room to announce its new 176-layer 3D NAND technology, which the company says will bring big changes to categories like consumer SSDs, smartphones, IoT devices, and enterprise data center markets.
Micron says its 176-layer NAND will reduce the die area of storage products by roughly 30 percent, allowing for greater storage capacity as the size of devices like smartphones and security cameras continues to shrink year over year. The company also leaned into its self-driving portfolio, with 40% of both standard and self-driving cars utilizing Micron storage today, a number representatives the company expects to grow as more car manufacturers adopt 176-layer NAND into their newest models.
Micron says the power-efficiency improvements in 176-layer NAND should be most welcome in new 5G phones, which have higher power requirements than previous models that use older network types like 4G LTE. The company also says consumers should expect larger storage capacity tiers to start showing up in future phone models based on 176-layer, though it wouldn't go into specifics about OEMs or partners that will bring this technology to the consumer space.
Both Samsung and SK Hynix have also announced plans for 176-layer NAND this year, however Micron enjoys a slight lead since—according to the company—it's the only manufacturer currently in production.
When asked about how 176-layer will change the potential of future devices, Micron says that increasing density of its NAND allows for innovative designs in research and development, giving manufacturers increased flexibility in how they approach engineering challenges that were held up by lower-density storage solutions based on 64- or 96-layer 3D NAND.
So far the only consumer-facing products the company has publicly announced plans for are its in-house Crucial consumer SSDs, coming in 2021, though it says we should expect announcements from more manufacturers as the year goes on.