Toshiba unveils XL-FLASH storage class memory

By Gina Roos, editor-in-chief

Toshiba Memory America, Inc. (TMA) unveiled its new Storage Class Memory (SCM) solution called XL-FLASH. Based on the company’s BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory technology with 1-bit-per-cell SLC, XL-FLASH delivers increased speed, reduced latency, and higher storage capacity at a lower cost than DRAM for data center and enterprise storage applications.

Toshiba, which touts SCM as the next frontier for enterprise storage, said XL-FLASH bridges the performance gap between DRAM and NAND. The SCM, or persistent memory, retains stored data like NAND flash and provides the speed, latency, and storage capacity at a lower cost than DRAM as the cost-per-bit and DRAM scalability levels off. SCM can be used to replace traditional hard-disk drives (HDDs) or solid-state drives (SSDs).

Key specs include:

• 128-gigabit (Gb) die (in a 2-die, 4-die, 8-die package)
• 4-KB page size for more efficient operating system that reads and writes
• 16-plane architecture for more efficient parallelism
• Low read latency of less than 5 microseconds, approximately 10-x faster than existing TLC2

XL-FLASH will initially be deployed in a SSD format but could be expanded to memory channel attached devices on the DRAM bus, such as non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (NVDIMMs). Sample shipments will start in September, with volume production to follow in 2020.