Have you ever wondered how your smartphone can store countless pictures, songs, or videos? Or, have you wondered when you download a podcast to your smartphone, where does it actually get stored? In this video, we will open up your smartphone and take a look at the inside of the memory storage microchip. This same microchip is also used to store data in solidstate drives, or SSDs in your computer, in tablets, and inside flash drives. The technology is called VNAND or VNAND, and it's incredible how engineers were able to fit such an insane amount of memory storage capacity in such a small space.

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Written, animated, and edited Teddy Tablante
Twitter: @teddytablante
Voice Over Phil Lee

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro into SSDs
2:06 Example of Saving a Picture
4:17 Pixel Calculations
5:19 Single Memory Cell
7:59 Vertical Strings and Pages
10:34 Control Gates of VNAND
12:00 Calculations of Example Array
13:09 True size of an SSD microchip
14:50 Overall chip in an SSD
16:07 Outro
16:32 Creator's comments
16:54 Future Episodes

This video is part of a series that intends to thoroughly explain how SSDs, and more specifically how VNAND works. These are the episodes in the series:
1) [18min] Overview on how SSDs / VNAND / Smartphone storage works.
2) [3min] Quick/Abridged episode of the overview
3) How charge trap flash works. (details on a single memory cell)
4) How strings of memory cells work (details on a stack of memory cells)
5) How a massive array of memory cells are organized. (Terabit Cell Array Transistor, TCAT)
6) How is VNAND manufactured?
7) Possible episode on an analogy using a city & apartments to explain VNAND.

Key Branches from this video are: Microchips, CPUs, Integrated Circuits,

Erratum:

Animation built using Blender 2.82a https://www.blender.org/
Post with Adobe Premiere Pro

Book References:
Aritome, Seiichi. (2015). NAND flash memory technologies. IEEE Press Series on Microelectronic Systems. Wiley. [2nd most useful resource]

Cai, Yu et al. (2013) Threshold Voltage Distribution in MLC NAND Flash Memory: Characterization Analysis, and Modeling. 2013 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition. IEEE.

Micheloni, Rino. Marelli, Alessia. Eshghi, Kam. (2018) Inside solid state drives (SSDs) Second edition. Springer Series in Advanced Microelectronics Volume 37. Springer.

Micheloni, Rino. (2017) Solidstatedrives (SSDs) Modeling, Simulation tools & strategies. Springer Series in Advanced Microelectronics Volume 58. Springer

Micheloni, Rino. Crippa, Luca. (2016) 3D flash memories. Springer. [Chapter 4 Most useful resource]

Pierret, Robert F. (1996) Semiconductor Device Fundamentals. AddisonWesley Publishing Company.

Prince, Betty. (2014) Vertical 3D Memory Technologies. Wiley

Internet References:
Crisp, Simon. (29/01/2018) Samsung SSD860 PRO 4TB SSD Review. Kitguru.net
https://www.kitguru.net/components/ss... (Accessed 07/05/2020)

Mellor, Chris. (28/07/2016) QLC flash istricky stuff to make and use, so here's a primer. TheRegister.co.uk
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07... (Accessed 07/05/2020)

Samsung Website. Samsung 1TB Details and Specifications www.samsung.com
https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/... (Accessed 07/05/2020)

Shah, Dhiram. (27/02/2019) Samsung Begins Mass Production of Frist 512 GB eUFS3.0 for NextGeneration Mobile Devices. Fareastgizmos.com
https://fareastgizmos.com/smartphone/... (Accessed 07/05/2020)

Wikipedia contributors. "Charge Trap Flash." "Flash Memory." "Floatinggate Mosfet." "Samsung Electronics." "SolidState drive." "Solidstate storage." "Threedimensional integrated circuit." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Visited May, 2020

Yoon, Alex. (15/02/2018) Understanding Memory, An inside look at different memory types and how they work. Semiengineering.com
https://semiengineering.com/whatsrea... (Accessed 07/05/2020)

#SSD #VNAND #Microchip