Samsung is preparing to deploy their latest innovations in NAND density with the next-generation V-NAND (7th gen). Samsung says it is preparing products that leverage both V-NAND's higher density (at 176 layers per chip versus up to 136 layers on 6th gen) with the throughput of both PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0. This would of course mean higher density drives available, as well as a reduction in the overall $/GB equation. Due to Samsung's vertical integration (meaning that they are one of the few companies that can design and produce all SSD components in-house), the company is also developing next-gen NAND controllers that can leverage throughputs of 2,000 MT/s transfer rates and thus "optimized for multitasking huge workloads".

Samsung expects to be able to scale V-NAND well past the 1,000 layer mark - a far-cry from the claims made by SK Hynix, who have only talked about a theoretical 600-layer NAND configuration. While the 176-layer, 7-gen V-NAND is only now entering mass production and the final stages of product development, Samsung has already taped out the initial batches of their 8th-gen V-NAND, which feature "more than 200 layers". It's likely that Samsung's 1,000-layer claim actually looks towards the future in a timeframe of decade(s?) and isn't actually something to look forward to in the approximate future.

Micron, the US-based manufacturer of various kinds of memory technologies, has today announced some quite interesting products at its Computex 2021 keynote. For starters, the company has announced a new portfolio of products based on 176-layer NAND. There are currently two products listed that use this new technology and those are the Micron 3400 and 2450 M.2 NVMe SSDs. Based on the PCIe 4.0 interface, the 2450 SSD lineup is designed as a value-oriented solution that comes in M.2-2280, M.2-2242, and M.2-2230 sizes. It ranges from 256 GB to 1 TB in capacities, which are supposed to be priced as a value purchase.

In a contrast, the 3400 SSD is M.2-2280 design, meant for only the highest performance. The sequential read speeds go up to 6600 MB/s, while the sequential writes go up to 5000 MB/s (in the case of the 2 TB model). Capacities range from 512 GB to 2 TB and only the 1 TB and 2 TB variants have the 5000 MB/s write speeds, while the 512 GB version is capped at 3600 MB/s speed. Both SSD models are featuring a heat spreader on top of NAND chips and spot an in-house and Micron-developed NVMe 1.4 SSD controller. However, Micron does note that the company is free to use any 3rd party SSD controller as we are deep in component shortages with high demand for SSDs. You can get an in-depth look at the 2450 and 3400 M.2 SSDs from Micron's website.

Phison Electronics Corp, a global leader in NAND flash controller integrated circuits and storage solutions, today announces shipping of its PS5018-E18 PCIe Gen4 controllers to manufacturer partners with new 176-layer replacement gate NAND.

The new E18 paired with 176-layer fills the crucial role in the Phison product stack as the highest performing E18 to date. The potent combination delivers up to 7,400 MB/s sequential reads and 7,000 MB/s sequential writes.

The largest gains arrive in random read latency where the new premium tier shows a 35% performance increase over previous models at low queue depth improving user experience in system responsiveness. The new E18 delivers the best game load times of any consumer SSD in its class.TPU had the chance to test this drive and we posted our review here.