On Tuesday, Toshiba celebrated the official 25th anniversary of NAND flash as a storage technology that has been driving over two decades of accelerated storage innovation at a neck-breaking pace.

Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba in around 1980 and has since managed to revolutionize nearly all computing devices in many horizontal industries. As the principle inventor of NAND and NOR flash, Toshiba has managed to offer one of the broadest line-ups of Multi-Layer Cell (MLC) and Single-Layer Cell (SLC) NAND flash storage solutions since 1987. The technology has become a world-reknown standardized memory device in which consumers are now able able to carry videos, music, books and data with them wherever they go.

But of course, the technology industry didn't always have the convenience of low cost-per-bit storage solutions until recently. As the NAND flash market has exponentiated, current NAND flash memory shipped almost eight times more gigabytes in 2011 than DRAM (see: an 8GB DDR3 DRAM memory stick versus a 64GB NAND flash chip).



Toshiba and SanDisk joint Fab 5 300mm NAND flash facility in Mie Prefecture, Japan

"NAND flash has truly permeated our lives -- this technology has been a game changer, making the world a different place and making many of the products we use today possible. The cost/performance of NAND flash continues to stand the test of time. NAND flash is leading the way to thin and light hardware, has made the mobility of content possible, and is enabling 'green' storage in the data centers," noted Scott Nelson, vice president of memory business unit at Toshiba America Electronic Components. 

Toshiba will continue to celebrate the 25th anniversary of NAND flash throughout 2012.