Today, SanDisk Corporation in Milpitas, California announced that it has begun shipments of flash memory cards based on 43nm 64-gigabit (Gb) NAND flash designed with 4-bits-per-cell design from Toshiba.

To put this technological advancement in perspective, the architecture that modern MLC NAND flash devices incorporate is based on 2-bits-per-cell. Many Solid State Disks currently use this method at around a 50nm or higher fabrication processes. SanDisk’s engineering advancement effectively lowers overall chip costs inherent to 4-bits-per-cell with twice the efficiency of current cell designs and does so using Toshiba’s 43nm process.

"X4 took five years of development at SanDisk, and the finished product is a testament to the hard work and collaboration of the parties involved," said Dr. Ze'ev Weinfeld, Ramot's CEO. "Once we created the basic approach, SanDisk brought this to fruition by developing its advanced X4 controller and matching it with its advanced 43nm, 64Gb X4 memory thus making full X4 product implementation possible.”

For consumers, the X4 memory standard is now shipping on SanDisk SDHC cards and Memory Stick PRO Duo cards in 8GB and 16GB (gigabyte) capacities. Having more bits per cell effectively requires higher threshold voltage states in a cell, and this poses a complicated task for engineers who must focus not only on higher efficiency, but on higher reliability as well. As the final solution results, consumers win the battle by purchasing more reliable NAND flash memory and the economy wins as market prices drop in result.

The press release can be found here.