Join us for the RPI Semiconductor CoLab Special Seminar on Friday, April 10, 9:30–11:00 AM at the NFS Auditorium, Albany NanoTech Complex.
Speaker: Shyam Surthi, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Advanced NAND Technology, Micron Technology
Talk: Bits that Persist: NAND Flash Scaling and Opportunities in the AI Era
Registration deadlines:
Non-US citizens: 03/26
US citizens & permanent residents: 04/07
Breakfast and check-in is between 8:30am-9:30am. Details on ID requirements and site access are available at the registration link.
Register here.
Abstract:
Bits that Persist: NAND Flash Scaling and Opportunities in the AI Era
NAND flash has sustained decades of bit growth through relentless innovation, evolving from planar cells to highly stacked 3D architectures that deliver low cost per bit at massive scale. As the AI era accelerates, however, storage requirements are shifting beyond capacity alone to emphasize bandwidth, latency, energy efficiency, and system‑level cost. These demands expose new scaling challenges as layer stacking becomes increasingly complex and expensive. This talk reviews the foundations of NAND scaling, examines the emerging cost‑performance trade‑offs driven by AI workloads, and discusses architectural and technology directions that can keep NAND flash relevant and competitive in future AI systems. To keep scaling viable in an AI‑dominated computing landscape, innovations in architecture, materials, process, hardware, device concepts are needed.
Short Bio:
Shyam Surthi is currently Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in Advanced NAND Technology team and currently based in Singapore. He received BS and MS in Chemical Engineering from the University Institute of Chemical Technology (Mumbai, India) and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama, specializing in processing and characterization of Perovskite materials. Subsequently, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at North Carolina State University developing Si-molecular devices for memory applications.
Shyam joined Diffusion Process development at Micron in 2004, working on various films development projects and later transitioning to Advanced DRAM Process Integration role. Since 2011, Shyam has been in various people leadership roles in films process development for DRAM and emerging memory and technical leadership roles in NAND pathfinding with focus on integration. Shyam is a Senior Member of IEEE and holds 75 U.S. patents and several international patents. He has >25 publications in refereed technical journals and conference proceedings.