NAND Best
According to market research firm IHS, 75 percent of the memory that Samsung Electronics produces in the third quarter of this year is expected to be 10 nm-class NAND flash memory, and another 17 percent will be 3D V-NAND.
These days, Samsung Electronics is increasing its ratio of advanced micro-fabrication at a very rapid pace. The percentage totaled 49 in the first quarter of this year, rose to 72 percent in the following quarter, and is estimated to exceed 90 percent in the third, as mentioned above.
Until March this year, the company focused on process technology covering the latter half of the 10 to 19-nm range, with the ratio of the technology adding up to 51 percent. However, the percentage dropped to 28 percent by the end of June, and is predicted to reach 8 percent by the end of the third quarter, 1 percent or so at the end of this year, and zero percent next year.
In the meantime, Micron Technology is trying to catch up with Samsung Electronics by raising the ratio of its process technology for the latter half of that range up to 76 percent. However, Micron Technology has yet to start the production of 3D NAND, or those in the first half of that range. Toshiba and SK Hynix are increasing their micro-fabrication ratios as well, but the latter half of the range is estimated to account for 57 percent and 6 percent this quarter, respectively. Micro-fabrication in the latter half represents 90 percent of the production of SK Hynix as of now.
The NAND flash market is a rosy picture nowadays. Global demand is likely to soar in the second half of this year with smartphones’ display resolutions, memory performance, and capacities on the rise. Under the circumstances, Samsung Electronics’ NAND flash sales are expected to increase a lot, from US$2.2 billion recorded in the first quarter of 2015.