Friday, August 18th 2023
Samsung Said to Produce 300-Layer V-NAND in 2024
It appears that Samsung is getting ready to beat SK Hynix in the race to 300 plus layers of NAND Flash, at least according to reports coming out of South Korea. The Seoul Economic Daily claims in an exclusive that Samsung will have a 300 plus layer V-NAND—(V for Vertical or 3D NAND—chip ready for production in 2024 and could as such beat SK Hynix by as much as a year, depending on how soon Samsung can deliver. Currently Samsung's most cutting edge stacked NAND is a 236-layer product, which is four more layers than Micron and YMTC, but two less than SK Hynix.
What sticks out in the Seoul Economic Daily news piece is that unlike SK Hynix, which is going for a triple stack sandwich, Samsung will apparently stick with two stacks. This means that Samsung is aiming for over 150-layers of NAND per stack, which seems like a big risk to take when it comes to yields. The taller the stacks, the bigger the chance of a failed stack, but maybe Samsung has found a solution around this potential issue. As modern 3D NAND relies on Through Silicon Vias, it's easier to manufacture denser stacks than in the past when wire bonding was used, but even so, this seems like a big risk for Samsung to take. That said, considering the current low demand and news of further cutbacks in production, it might be a good time for Samsung to utilise its fabs to test out this new, more densely stacked NAND to see if the company can mass produce it without issues. Samsung's roadmap calls for a 1000 plus layer V-NAND product by 2030, but it seems like the road there is still long and complicated.
Sources:
Seoul Economic Daily, via DigiTimes
What sticks out in the Seoul Economic Daily news piece is that unlike SK Hynix, which is going for a triple stack sandwich, Samsung will apparently stick with two stacks. This means that Samsung is aiming for over 150-layers of NAND per stack, which seems like a big risk to take when it comes to yields. The taller the stacks, the bigger the chance of a failed stack, but maybe Samsung has found a solution around this potential issue. As modern 3D NAND relies on Through Silicon Vias, it's easier to manufacture denser stacks than in the past when wire bonding was used, but even so, this seems like a big risk for Samsung to take. That said, considering the current low demand and news of further cutbacks in production, it might be a good time for Samsung to utilise its fabs to test out this new, more densely stacked NAND to see if the company can mass produce it without issues. Samsung's roadmap calls for a 1000 plus layer V-NAND product by 2030, but it seems like the road there is still long and complicated.
33 Comments on Samsung Said to Produce 300-Layer V-NAND in 2024
Even what is touted as SLC today is usually pSLC, i.e. 3D TLC that only stores one bit per cell.
I think modern 3D TLC is as endurant and fast as planar MLC which is now really dated.
Looks like Micron does some 3D MLC, but 64 GB costs $42...
www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Micron/MT29F512G08CMCEBJ4-37ITRE?qs=w%2Fv1CP2dgqoyUyXs8N872w%3D%3D
Samsung 300+ layers
Hynix 321 layers
Kioxia 330 layers
WD 360 layers
All numbers is fake and create from me.
I really don't mind the latest gen in terms of speed.. Even the pci-express 3.0 m2 ssd speed more than enough for my archiving purposes.
It's a shame the best never became successful. I know its only a guess, but, I do think had Intel held on and produced one more generation, and other companies licensed the tech from Intel, we would have the next generation xpoint today. Can you imagine how fast it would be now? It was stable, extremely high reliability, and fastest made to date. Granted price was high, but so was nand.
I think Intel coudn't find a way to builld Xpoint memory chips in (many) layers - and others (Hynix, Samsung) who dissected Intel's chips didn't think they could find a way, either. Even if they could obtain the license.
But the multi-layer manufacturing is advancing, there's a lot of research going on, I'm optimistic about DRAM too and I think we may see mass-produced DRAM chips in 3-4 years. Maybe, just maybe, those yellow and green blocks will get another chance around 2030.