Understand the Importance of NAND Flash as KIOXIA Celebrates 35 Years as Its Inventor

At least to me, it’s rather amazing how one of the most progressive inventions historically has been overlooked.  It is not electricity.  It is not the light bulb and it isn’t the telephone but you can bet that it plays a massive role within each in every moment of our lives.  It is NAND flash and NAND was invented by Toshiba, now KIOXIA, way back in 1987 after being first discovered by Dr. Fujio Masuoka.  The name ‘flash’ can actually be credited to his colleague, Mr. Sho-ji Ariizumi as the erasure process of memory reminded him of the camera flash.  So what is flash and why is it so important?

The chip you see on the left side of this M.2 SSD is actually KIOXIA  BiCS5 112-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory and is 1TB in size. It is storage. Most might overlook this at first but for the fact that this storage device weighs under 10 grams and is the size of a Juicy Fruit gum stick.  That small.  So if you think about it,  that small chip is roughly the size of a quarter… yet will store roughly 2,000,000 photos.  It could also store 250,000 songs which equates to 694 days of non-stop music.  Similarly it can store 250 movies for 500 hours of non-stop viewing or an insurmountable 6.5 million pages of documents.

It’s importance is shown in just about all of our everyday activities in some form or another.  Take your cell phone for instance.  Flash memory within.  In fact, Samsung’s newest Galaxy S22 release is now available in 1TB of storage so you can store all we just described on your smartphone. Ordered!  Let’s take it a step further though.  Flash has taken the place of hard drives considerably and, in doing so, has sped up the process of storing and retrieving data so much that we can… have instant interactions on the internet, book online reservations worldwide in an instant, watch instant sport replay’s in countless points of view, as well as streaming video instantly.  NAND… and KIOXIA… has helped each and every one of us get in touch with our world in seconds, vice hours, days or weeks.  And today it is time to celebrate!

As amusing as this first video may seem, it strikes a valuable point of how far we have come. In this video below, President and CEO of KIOXIA America Toshiaki Fujikawa, along with some members of the KIOXIA America team, discuss just how NAND has impacted the world we live and how life itself has moved forward through technology.

KIOXIA has also created a 35th Anniversary Website to discuss the beginning of NAND flash and how it has changed the world we live in today.  It also has a series of videos where, as above in the first video, we can explore what life might be like without NAND.  Take five minutes and discover this invention that is truly one of the most overlooked discoveries of our time.  We bet you pick up a few facts that you pass on to friends at some point in your day.  Pass along the wonder of NAND!

CLICK ON THE PHOTO BELOW!

“Flash memory is a game-changer that continues to stand the test of time,” said Scott Nelson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for KIOXIA America, Inc. “Imagine what’s to come – will the vision of smart cities be realized? Will truly autonomous cars take us from place to place? Whatever the future holds, KIOXIA will continue to lead the way forward, investing in and evolving the technology that makes storage densities higher and costs lower. The sky is the limit for flash memory, and the next wave of applications that will further enrich our lives is just around the corner. In some ways, we’re just getting started.”