How do SSDs Work? | How does your Smartphone store data? | Insanely Complex Nanoscopic Structures!

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 solid-state drives, or SSDs in your computer, in tablets, and inside flash drives. The technology is called VNAND or V-NAND, and it's incredible how engineers were able to fit such an insane amount of memory storage capacity in such a small space.

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:

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) Solid-state-drives (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. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

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

Internet References:

Wikipedia contributors. "Charge Trap Flash." "Flash Memory." "Floating-gate Mosfet." "Samsung Electronics." "Solid-State drive." "Solid-state storage." "Three-dimensional integrated circuit." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Visited May, 2020

#SSD #VNAND #Microchip

[BranchEducation]

What are your thoughts on the creator's comments? You can find them in the English (Canada) subtitles.

[SomethingAbtScience]

It's not the complexity that gets me, it's the insane ability to manufacture at such a small scale, unbelievable. Far above me.

[MrHeavychevy]

This makes you realize just how intelligent the people behind engineering stuff like this are.

[nitheshpushparaj]

Man, give him an award for making a such wonderful and easy explanation.

[mmmikemike]

This didn't just happen over night, it was a long process to get to where we are and took many great minds. It would be cool to see a documentary more into the history and evolution of this stuff. It's cool to see old physical records people used to listen to music on and the old cameras they used to take pictures physically vs digitally. I'm amazed by the online multi-player video games and virtual reality stuff blows my mind, that's what made me curious about how hard drives and the ssd work and are used. Theres so much to learn, it's hard to wrap my head around. And it all happened in a relatively short time compared to how long we've been on this earth. We have these big brains and eyes gotta use them for something.

[duanhaoming]

As a computer engineering student, I would say this video is one of the greatest instruction videos I have ever watched.

[rajeshbabu]

Seriously, I don't know how 17 minutes gone ....I was deeply involved with working principles...and as usual animation it's out of the world...!!!

[Thomlinmusic]

I bought a 4TB external SSD that fits in my hand so I was curious how it's possible and how it works.. It's insane how the tech world has made it possible to store so much data it such a small place..

[dhavalrajput]

I have 10+ years of experience working with SSD firmwares, but hadn't understood SSD internals so better in such a short time. Thank you for this informative video !!!

[muhammadfazlurrahman]

Every part of smartphone is a miracle of engineering
Most people today : nah, we only care about the camera

[bhavyajain]

I feel lucky to be born in this universe, where I can get education for free. No teacher would ever be capable of explaining this way.

[cortexauth]

One of very rare videos, that are not afraid of being technical. I loved it, especially comments through subtitles, adds some replaybility and also had me know more about the content. I hope I can learn more here. Being a CS student who like computer systems, and hence love to interact with lower layers, I find this very insightful

[DrVetterRepair]

I like how you demonstrate the basics of electronics "building blocks" and "duplication". Many circuits follow this standard recipe; create a circuit and duplicate it. Good job getting all of the information across in a fun visual. Funny how far we have come from the simple D-latch memory.

[TheLawrence]

I can't believe I have such level of Divine Wisdom in my pocket and all I do with it is watch Memes and complain about my life! DAMN

[thedominantone]

*Dude your channel deserves to get millions of subs*

[flamingpitchfork]

Teddy Tablante and team deserve a NOBEL PRIZE in Education.

[anna-fleurfarnsworth]

this is the kind of education I love to see, because without being able to independently conceptualize these very small concepts it's easy to get frustrated. I still can't say that I fully understand how this works but what a great explainer!

[Firefin]

what always gets me with all these highly intricate parts are not only the high levels of complexity that is built into them, but also the fact that someone devised a way to etch out literally nm of material in such a specific and highly accurate manner and that there's little to no mistakes on every sold product.

[Unknown-lwux]

And I still can't believe why top branded bags are more expensive than Computers.

[peterkinskofer]

I love this channel. Blew my mind with the first one I watched on SSDs. The comments and captions are a great addition too. Thanks Ted.