In order to secure their margins on a mid-term roadmap, flash memory manufacturers are forced to massively invest in R&D with the secret hope to unveil a thinner process of manufacturing so it could reduce production cost, as it would allow them to produce more chips on the same wafer.
SanDisk announced to have produced MLC and X3 flash memory chips with a 19 nm engraving process, while most of the high-production lines are currently at 24 nm. The company expects to bring such 19 nm-based products during 2012.
However it remains to be tested and demonstrated that the thinner process does not compromise the lifetime of the memory chips. Indeed, with MLC chips, each new generation with thinner process has seen the number of writing cycles to be reduced significantly when compared to the previous generation.
If the lifetime is reasonable and reliable, especially for X3 chips that OCZ wants to use for its mainstream products, it could bring the price of GB storage below the psychological limit of $1 per GB. It would definitely be the best way to attract more people to SSD and avoid that it remains a storage solution for an elite...
