EP18 – Geeking out about Persistent Memory, 3D XPoint, 3D NAND and all things flashy with Rob Peglar



In this 18th episode of the TECHunplugged Podcast we welcome storage & flash memory industry veteran Rob Peglar (@peglarr) who is also President of Advanced Computation and Storage LLC, and Member of the SNIA Board of Directors. For the younger ones, Rob is the former VP of Advanced Storage Memory at Micron (hello 3D XPoint) and former Americas CTO for Isilon (then EMC, today Dell Technologies).

Podcast co-hosts Max Mortillaro (@darkkavenger) and Arjan Timmerman (@Arjantim) talk with Rob about many exciting topics such as the evolution of the computer industry from a memory and architectural concepts perspective, to then discuss about the latest innovations in persistent memory, 3D XPoint, 3D NAND and other industry matters.

This podcast is the follow-up to a private discussion / peer review we have had with Rob following the publication of our industry research paper on “The Solid State Memory Industry in 2019“.

We’re glad to have welcomed Rob on this episode and we thank him for the very exciting discussion and geeking!

Show schedule:

  • 0:00 Introductions & Rob gives some background information about him
  • 2:56 The early days of computing, the TECHunplugged research paper on Solid-State Memory, and about what originally was solid-state memory
  • 04:25 Is ferrite core memory the ancestor of persistent memory?
  • 05:15 Parallels between old days persistent memory and today’s persistent memory, and the art of writing code
  • 07:01 Talking about the SNIA, persistent memory, and development frameworks on how to write code for systems with persistent memory
  • 09:47 Is persistent memory the tip of the iceberg? what are the drivers to persistent memory adoption?
  • 13:12 Will persistent memory be used as a cache layer to address denser storage? What about QLC? The case of VAST Data
  • 14:49 Looking at 3D XPoint and persistent memory from a non storage-centric perspective; going beyond cache
  • 17:44 Isn’t this brave new world of persistent memory just a redux of what existed 40 years ago?
  • 19:00 Talking about 3D NAND QLC / TLC, Storage Field Day 18 and Western Digital  – are 3D NAND density projections around 128-Layer and above realistic? What are the alternatives?
  • 23:00 What about the rise of 3D NAND manufacturing in China?
  • 25:36 Discussing about the future of 3D XPoint in light of the Intel-Micron split, and other « competing » (or rather emerging) technologies (MRAM, etc.)
  • 29:52 Conclusion