“What’s better than 2-bits per cell? 3 bits of course. IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between Intel and Micron, has announced that they have developed a 3-bit-per-cell NAND device that Micron will begin producing for commercial consumption this fall. The technology, dubbed 3bpc (tricky acronym for 3-bits-per-cell), stores more bits per cell than current technology and allows the development of higher density flash memory so it can store more data in less space.”
We see 50% increase in size and price drop every years since 1 decade, but glad to see some possibly decent (capacity wise) usb thumb drive soon!
Hopefully this will give SSDs a more competitive £/GB ratio. I’ve already jumped on the bandwagon but I’d certainly like a larger ssd, or possibly SLC drives at current MLC prices.
The move from SLC to 2 bit-per-cell MLC came with a decrease in the life of a cell from 100,000 writes to only 10,000 on average.
The write speed is also much lower for MLC although new controllers appear to be addressing this. Manufacturers are working around the decreased write lifetime with enhanced wear-leveling algorithms.
Will this new tech also cause the write life-cycle and write speed to decrease?