Micron Technology has begun volume shipments of what the company claims is the world's first 176-layer 3D NAND flash memory.

Micron indicated its new 176-layer technology and advanced architecture represent a radical breakthrough enabling immense gains in application performance across a range of storage use cases spanning data center, intelligent edge and mobile devices.

"Micron's 176-layer NAND sets a new bar for the industry, with a layer count that is almost 40% higher than our nearest competitor's," said Scott DeBoer, executive VP of technology and products at Micron. "Combined with Micron's CMOS-under-array architecture, this technology sustains Micron's industry cost leadership."

Compared with the company's previous generation of high-volume 3D NAND, Micron's 176-layer NAND improves both read latency and write latency by more than 35%. Featuring approximately 30% smaller die size than best-in-class competitive offerings, Micron's 176-layer NAND's compact design is ideal for solutions using small form factors, the chip vendor said.

"Micron's 176-layer NAND enables breakthrough product innovation for our customers," said Sumit Sadana, executive VP and chief business officer at Micron. "We are deploying this technology across our broad product portfolio to bring value everywhere NAND is used, targeting growth opportunities in 5G, AI, cloud and the intelligent edge."

Micron's 176-layer NAND serves as an essential building block in technologists' toolboxes across a broad array of sectors, including mobile storage, autonomous systems, in-vehicle infotainment, and client and data center solid-state drives (SSD).

Micron's fifth generation of 3D NAND features a maximum data transfer rate at 1,600 megatransfers per second (MT/s) on the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) bus, a 33% improvement, the company indicated. The increased ONFI speed leads to faster system bootup and application performance. In automotive applications, this speed will power near instant-on response times for in-vehicle systems as soon as engines are turned on, enhancing the user experience.

To simplify firmware development, Micron's 176-layer NAND offers a single-pass programming algorithm, enabling easier integration and speeding time to market.

With the slowing of Moore's Law, Micron believes its innovation in 3D NAND is critical to ensuring that the industry can keep pace with growing data requirements. To achieve this milestone, Micron has combined its stacked replacement-gate architecture, novel charge-trap and CMOS-under-array (CuA) techniques.