Samsung begins mass production of 8th-gen vertical NAND

Samsung Electronics has begun mass producing a 1-terabit (Tb) triple-level cell (TLC) eighth-generation Vertical NAND (V-NAND) with the industry’s highest bit density. The South Korean tech giant promised the plan at Flash Memory Summit 2022 and Samsung Memory Tech Day 2022.

Samsung’s eighth-generation V-NAND features an input and output (I/O) speed of up to 2.4 gigabits per second (Gbps), a 1.2 times boost over the previous generation. The eighth-generation V-NAND is expected to be at the forefront of efforts to expand the storage capacity in next-generation enterprise servers while extending its use into the automotive market, where reliability is especially critical.

The company also noted that its ninth-generation V-NAND is under development and slated for mass production in 2024. By 2030, Samsung envisions stacking over 1,000 layers of V-NAND. In July, Samsung started operating Line 3 of its Pyeongtaek Campus to expand its manufacturing capacity of NAND other than the Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek campuses and Xian in China.

Samsung has also been working on developing a variety of innovative technology. For example, it successfully developed high-performance, low-power products optimized for data centers, SSD, computational storage with enhanced internal arithmetic function, and Zoned Storage, which enables efficient operation of high storage capacity.

Samsung Electronics has held the top spot in the global NAND Flash market since 2002. According to market research organization Omdia, Samsung’s global NAND Flash market share is the biggest at 33.3 percent. The company is followed by SK Hynix (20.4%, including Solidigm) and KIOXIA at 16 percent.

The company has yet to disclose the exact layer counts, but it is expected to be the highest in the industry. Micron began mass production of its 232-layer NAND in July, and SK Hynix said it succeeded in the development of 238-layer NAND in August.

“Samsung has adopted its base technology to avoid the interference that normally occurs with higher layer counts,” said Hur Sung-hoi, executive vice president of Flash Product & Technology at Samsung Electronics. “Our eighth-generation V-NAND will help meet rapidly growing market demand and better position us to deliver more differentiated products and solutions.”


Do-Young Kwak now@donga.com