Micron 3D NAND with 232 layers coming at the end of the year

A new Micron 3D NAND with 232 layers has started production immediately and should be available by the end of the year. The TLC variant offers 1 terabit per die, so 128 GB is twice as much memory/die as in the common 176-layer variant and just as much as the current QLC NAND.

232-layer Micron 3D NAND is coming

In November 2020, Micron had introduced the first 176-layer NAND and is now following up with the 232-layer counterpart. The model from about two years ago already contributed to increasing the speed of SSDs with its replacement gate architecture.

At the in-house Investor Day, the company now announced the 3D NAND successor, which has 232 layers and is supposed to be released at the end of 2022. However, production will still start moderately. From 2023, the 232-layer Micron 3D NAND is to be produced in large quantities.

The manufacturer once again relies on two layer arrays on top of each other, which are divided into 116 layers each. However, the manufacturer has not yet revealed details about the dimensions of the new NAND.

The storage capacity of the TLC chip is 3 bits per memory cell, which means that a total of 1 Tbit or the equivalent of 128 gigabytes can be achieved. Values that were previously only possible with QLC NAND. However, this is slower and not as durable as TLC models.

Apart from that, Micron is still keeping quiet about further details. It is unclear how high the memory density will be. Energy requirements and data throughput are also unknown, as is whether a QLC version of the Micron 3D NAND with 232 layers will follow.

First SSDs in the coming year

The first SSDs with the new Micron 3D NAND with 232 layers should be launched as early as 2023, as soon as production has picked up speed. Once again, the manufacturer offers completely self-developed solutions and allows partners to use them in combination with their controllers. Among them are, for example, SSDs from Crucial, like the current P5 Plus (our review).

Within the next ten years, Micron then even wants to offer NAND with over 300 and 400 layers. However, these will then be combined with an expanded stacking technology and a new design, in order to “further expand QLC supremacy” according to its own statement.