Wednesday, October 3rd 2018

3D QLC Woes - Manufacturers Fighting to Get Yields Above 50%

3D QLC (quad-level cell) is the latest, manufacture-ready technology to grace the NAND panorama, with promises of increased density over 3D TLC (triple-level cell), thus bringing pricing per GB even lower. However, as with all wafer-based PC components, yields are an extremely important part of that process. Cost reduction can only be attained if manufacturing allows for a given percentage of a wafer to be fully functional and without defects that compromise its feature-set or performance. However, as cell design becomes more complex in a bid to increase areal density, yields have taken longer to mature.

According to DigiTimes, 3D TLC yields have only gotten off the ground in the beginning of this year - right around the time companies were rolling out their 3D QLC designs. And if TLC took longer than expected to achieve respectable yields, it seems that QLC memory will take even longer - we already knew that the Intel-Micron venture on QLC was facing less than 50% yields, but DigiTimes has now extended this struggle to what seems to be the entire NAND manufacturing industry (Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Toshiba/ Western Digital and Micron Technology/Intel). The result? Expected price fluctuations in the beginning of 2019, as predicted production volume fails to meet both projected and actual demand, with 3D TLC supplies having to cope with increased market demands.
Source: DigiTimes
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31 Comments on 3D QLC Woes - Manufacturers Fighting to Get Yields Above 50%

#26
CheapMeat
R0H1TAccording to some specs or projections, when was the last time you saw an endurance test with SLC NAND like ~ SSD Endurance Test: BX200 dead after 187TB, 850 Pro after 9.1PB

In essence good NAND, SLC or MLC, will outlast most human attempts to exhaust their PE cycles.The QLC yields were never disclosed, probably because there's only a handful of drives using it.
. I'm on mobile at the moment so hard to search but Optane would still beat out SLC regardless. And it's not prone to power loss corruption among other benefits. There's also a reason you haven't really seen a consumer test on them, they're damn expensive. You might find some enterprise SLC drives from FusionIO or fairly small sub 100GB but that's it (and a lot of those FusionIO cards get beat now by TLC drives for various reasons or cost more than they should at this point). Good luck affording and waiting on anything close to as useful as most available MLC / TLC drives in the traditional way. The only thing coming close is Samsung's Z-NAND which is using other NAND cells in SLC mode with driver, controller and a large amount of RAM in some special sauce blend. And since you included that post with TLC and MLC endurance from torture tests, I can't see how any one of us enthusiasts would still be worried at all. FYI QLC is aimed for 1000 P/E cycles, same as most TLC, particularly planar TLC. I see absolutely zero issue with using it for my bulk storage, especially doing what I do now with traditional drives. It'll still outlive probably 99% of 3.5" HDDs. Honestly anything other than cost is a dumb reason to dislike or distrust TLC and QLC. Everything else can be worked around or handled or perfectly acceptable. Hell even enterprise is going all in with TLC and QLC, especially with 16Tb M.3 (NGSFF?) form factors in 1U servers. I mean, are you planning to only ever use ONE drive for your entire system? Is that your goal? Are we talking basic laptop here for a decade of usage or something or what? That's the only way I'd understand the critique of QLC and TLC.
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#27
stimpy88
QLC = crap.

This stuff makes MLC look amazing... Those were the days.
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#28
efikkan
TheGuruStudDon't buy intel junk, problem solved lol.
If Intel is junk, then what do you consider good? :rolleyes: Not Samsung with their junk firmware, and not Toshiba either I guess.
TheGuruStudThe point is that they're many times more reliable than a mechanical.
SSDs are very durable in terms of physical wear, but once sectors starts failing they are usually garbage.
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#29
trparky
efikkanNot Samsung with their junk firmware
Uh... no. Samsung makes some of the best damn SSDs on the market man. They're number one in the consumer SSD market for a reason. I'd buy a Samsung SSD before anyone else, Crucial is a very close second.
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#30
efikkan
trparkyUh... no. Samsung makes some of the best damn SSDs on the market man. They're number one in the consumer SSD market for a reason. I'd buy a Samsung SSD before anyone else, Crucial is a very close second.
Samsung sell the most SSDs because they offer very good value on paper.
But their controllers are well known for causing problems on Linux, I've seen them bricked myself.
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#31
trparky
efikkanBut their controllers are well known for causing problems on Linux, I've seen them bricked myself.
I thought that they fixed those issues. I'm referencing this issue. I don't play with Linux though, I'm more a Windows guy.
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