On August 31, 2017, SanDisk announced a high-capacity microSD card capable of storing 400 GB of data. That's right! A memory card the size of a dime can hold an incredible 40 hours of raw 1080p video, which was absolutely incomprehensible to tech savvy even a decade ago. But is this really the upper limit? Have we reached the memory peak? Or can we fit even more in this small space of 5 square millimeters?
We've already discussed that it's just not possible to change the dimensions of every slot on every device to fit a larger map. The only option left is to dive even deeper into microtransistor manufacturing technology. We need to make them smaller!
Theoretically, a transistor could be as small as a single molecule. On August 14, we succeeded in making monomolecular transistors operating sustainably at room temperature. Because the process of making these is so complicated, we can't expect them to go mainstream anytime soon, but it does present a window into what the future looks like. We could soon see transistors measuring as little as 5nm.
Remember, transistors fit in three-dimensional space , which means that as you shrink them, you also get more space to stack them. That's what had to happen for SanDisk to be able to make a 400GB microSD card. Under the 10nm transistor specification available to manufacturers as of 2017, you can install 400GB of memory using 25 layers of transistors which can now hold approximately 16 GB per layer.
With 5nm transistors, we could end up creating microSD cards that fit a terabyte of memory , which is about where I see the limit. We may not be able to get past that level and probably won't even need it for the foreseeable future.
Think you need more than 1TB of memory (let alone 400GB) in a microSD format? Tell us what you think in the comments!
