Samsung Plans 400-Layer V-NAND for 2026 and DRAM Technology Advancements by 2027

[Nomad76]

Samsung is currently mass-producing its 9th generation V-NAND flash memory chips with 286 layers unveiled this April. According to the Korean Economic Daily, the company targets V-NAND memory chips with at least 400 stacked layers by 2026. In 2013, Samsung became the first company to introduce V-NAND chips with vertically stacked memory cells to maximize capacity. However, stacking beyond 300 levels proved to be a real challenge with the memory chips getting frequently damaged. To address this problem, Samsung is reportedly developing an improved 10th-generation V-NAND that is going to use the Bonding Vertical (BV) NAND technology. The idea is to manufacture the storage and peripheral circuits on separate layers before bonding them vertically. This is a major shift from the current Co-Packaged (CoP) technology. Samsung stated that the new method will increase the density of bits per unit area by 1.6 times (60%), thus leading to increased data speeds.

Samsung's roadmap is truly ambitious, with plans to launch the 11th generation of NAND in 2027 with an estimated 50% improvement in I/O rates, followed by 1,000-layer NAND chips by 2030. Its competitor, SK hynix, is also working on 400-layer NAND aiming to have the technology ready for mass production by the end of 2025, as we previously mentioned in August. Samsung, the current HBM market leader with a 36.9% market share have also plans for its DRAM sector intending to introduce the sixth-generation 10 nm DRAM, or 1c DRAM by the first half of 2025. Then we can expect to see Samsung's seventh-generation 1d nm (still on 10 nm) in 2026, and by 2027 the company hopes to release its first generation sub-10 nm DRAM, or 0a DRAM memory that will use a Vertical Channel Transistor (VCT) 3D structure similar to what NAND flash utilizes.



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[TumbleGeorge]

According to the Korean Economic Daily, the company targets V-NAND memory chips with at least 400 stacked layers by 2026.

Hmm. What will be with plans for 430 layer nand in 2025. Broken?

 

[Nomad76]

Hmm. What will be with plans for 430 layer nand in 2025. Broken?

Could be on track, "at least 400 layers" however, let us see 400 first

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Yes, it's entirely possible that this news is subtly hinting at a delay of at least a year to that particular ~400 layer nand that was planned for 2025. The reasons may be internal as well, it's not like Samsung lacks success with the implementation of various technologies recently. But they can also be external. Despite all the... clumsy attempt to hype up the large language models, nothing good happens. GPT 5 may was nipped in the bud by Sam Altman, otherwise it would have already been introduced. And... well, the balloon didn't burst into pieces, but it already has holes and is leaking air.

 

[bug]

the company targets V-NAND memory chips with at least 400 stacked layers by 2026

What time in 2026? I need the exact hour dammit!

 

[evernessince]

This is nice and all but it doesn't mean much if costs don't come down as well.

As it stands right now, demand is being driven by enterprise / AI but consumers are still stuck with 8TB M.2 drives being the highest capacity that haven't gone down in price since they launched.

 

[bug]

This is nice and all but it doesn't mean much if costs don't come down as well.

This means you're getting more performance. That's much. You could get better performance at lower, same or slightly higher prices. All those would be big wins. The only possible negative scenario is getting all that at significantly higher prices. We don't know, atm, but I say our chances are pretty good.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

8TB M.2 drives being the highest capacity that haven't gone down in price since they launched

I didn't agree. Prices of 8TB NVME SSD was $1300-1500 before 2-3 years. Big nand depression from 2023 make prices between $800-1000 and in this price region they are to this moment no matter of inflation. Yes the 8TB model of SATA SSD Samsung 870 QVO was incredible cheap up to $379 in short period with promotions and today is wow ~70%+ more expensive. I don't know the reasons that make this huge increase for this slower of the slowest qlc pieces of...But NVME 8TB is cheaper in fact.

 

[evernessince]

I didn't agree. Prices of 8TB NVME SSD was $1300-1500 before 2-3 years. Big nand depression from 2023 make prices between $800-1000 and in this price region they are to this moment no matter of inflation. Yes the 8TB model of SATA SSD Samsung 870 QVO was incredible cheap up to $379 in short period with promotions and today is wow ~70%+ more expensive. I don't know the reasons that make this huge increase for this slower of the slowest qlc pieces of...But NVME 8TB is cheaper in fact.

Your pricing figure is not accurate.

One of the first 8TB drives was the Sabrent 8TB TLC drive with an MSRP of $1,200: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sabrent-rocket-4-plus-8tb-ssd-review

Current price is, you guessed it, $1,200 Two years (almost 3), zero progress.

Rocket 4 Plus SSD

PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, NVMe 1.3 compliant. APST/ASPM/L1.2 support. Supports SMART and TRIM functions. Works in an enclosure. Wide flash compatibility. Uses TLC with DRAM. Advanced endurance features for a long drive lifespan. Upgradeable firmware and software support. 4.0-capable motherboard and...

sabrent.com

It was and is the most expensive consumer 8TB m.2 drive because it employs a very large cache. Lower cost drives launched later at a lower price but they often come with trade-offs like worse warranty, less cache, lower endurance (WD Black 8TB for example), less reputable brand, ect. In fact if you look at the amazon listing for the Sabrent 8TB TLC, the cheaper price of $1,070 on Amazon vs the official store is due to it being sold without a warranty by "PA Home & Outdoors", a seller with 58% positive feedback. Surely nothing will go wrong with that.

You are missing the forest though the trees really, many of the drives launched at the exact same price they are currently at. Some of them actually increased in price, the Oyen 8TB launched at $670 and is now $900. I snagged two of those to add alongside my enterprise SSDs. They were the only reasonably priced 8TB TLC m.2 SSD for the little while they were available at that price.

You are paying 4 times the price per TB as compared to a 4 TB drive (HP FX900 vs WD Black 8TB) and that's before you consider that the 4TB drives did go on sale for $200 on black friday whereas the 8TB drives did not.

Now compare that to 7.68 TB enterprise drives, which go for around $500 - $600 with vastly better endurance, power loss protection, and encryption.

This means you're getting more performance. That's much. You could get better performance at lower, same or slightly higher prices. All those would be big wins. The only possible negative scenario is getting all that at significantly higher prices. We don't know, atm, but I say our chances are pretty good.

Rather optimistic, the increasing the pace of NAND development could mean significantly higher prices for higher density chips. NAND vendors seem to be very opitmistic with their future layer count increases but at the end of the day they need to be able to fund that. There have been times in the history of the storage industry where manufacturers failed to predict market demand and it's the reason why many of them died off, the margins on storage products are thin.

Mind you even in the best case scenario, improvements to NAND performance may not be in metrics that are meaningful to the vast majority of people. There's barley any difference from vastly lower layer count PCIe 3.0 drives vs 232 layer PCIe 5.0 drives in consumer workloads. There is 0 difference between anything PCIe 4.0 and faster, except for Optane. Optane is the only thing that actually provides a noticeable performance uplift over a 3.0, 4.0, or 5.0 drive.

 

[Pizdarenkowitch]

All this is nice, but where is GAA-FET litho????
I'm waiting since 2017 to buy a computer with GAA-FET on board of a cpu & gpu, but still nothing ...

followed by 1,000-layer NAND chips by 2030.

No wait! seriously?!?!?!
So no GAA-FET, no 3D trench cell,no OTS, but only NAND till 2030!?!?!

 

[TumbleGeorge]

the Sabrent 8TB

On the world has more trademarks except sabrent, wd and hp, and much more shops than amazon. Sorry for that I'm not USA citizen and have wide point of view. May agree with parts of your assumptions about the quality and capabilities of any products. Especially Sabrent are mostly at the bottom of the charts in many indicators, I don't know why you praise them!

 

[evernessince]

On the world has more trademarks except sabrent, wd and hp, and much more shops than amazon.

I'm looking at EU pricing across a number of shops, seems to be similar to US pricing: https://geizhals.de/western-digital-wd-black-sn850x-nvme-ssd-8tb-wds800t2xhe-a3249798.html

May agree with parts of your assumptions about the quality and capabilities of any products. Especially Sabrent are mostly at the bottom of the charts in many indicators, I don't know why you praise them!

Assumptions? I provided facts based on the technical specs of the products and review data and included links to back that up. Here are additional links to TPU's own databased to compare endurance numbers:

Western Digital SN850X 8 TB Specs

8 TB, TLC, PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2 2280

www.techpowerup.com

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8 TB Specs

8 TB, TLC, PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2 2280

www.techpowerup.com

You are confusing praise with merely stating facts. The point was not to praise them, it was to explain pricing relative to other 8TB m.2 drives. Sabrent doesn't make the fastest SSDs on the planet, that's not their target clientel.