Competition for Higher Density Chips
Technology competition is heating up among global chipmakers to become the first company to mass produce 200-layer NAND flash memory chips.
Samsung Electronics will unveil 8th-generation NAND flashes with 200 or more layers at the end of 2022. Industry insiders believe that Samsung has already secured 256-layer technology through the "double stack" approach.
Samsung Electronics is expected to start volume production of 7th-generation 176-layer NAND within the first quarter of 2022. The Korean semiconductor giant originally planned to start mass production of 176-layer NAND at the end of 2021, but postponed it to the first quarter of 2022 in consideration of market conditions. Micron Technology of the Unites States has already started volume production of 176-layer NAND.
Samsung Electronics is expected to release the 200-layer NAND chips at the end of 2022 or the first half of 2023 at the latest and start mass production within the first half of next year.
The fewer holes used to tie cells are, the fewer data a chip loses. Therefore, single stack technology is more advanced than double stack technology. However, 100 layers are regarded as the technical limit of single stack technology. Currently, Samsung Electronics is the world’s only chipmaker that can stack more than 100 layers (128 layers) using the single stack method. SK Hynix, the world's second-largest NAND flash producer, and Micron Technology of the United States have been using double stack technology in stacking 72 or more layers.
As Samsung Electronics can stack more than 100 layers in a single stack, it will be able to stack more than 200 layers using double stack technology.
Industry insiders predict that Samsung Electronics will speed up mass production of 200-layer NAND flashes to reclaim the technological leadership lost to Micron Technology. Overall, they say that Samsung Electronics will be the first chipmaker to release 224-layer NAND flashes by adding 96 layers to a 128-layer single stack. A 224-layer NAND flash can boost productivity and data transmission speed by 30 percent compared to a 176-layer chip.
Micron is also expected to accelerate development of 200-plus NAND chips. As Micron mass-produced 176-layer NAND flashes for the first time in the world at the end of 2021, industry watchers believe that the company has the know-how to mass-produce ultra-high density NAND flashes.
SK Hynix is also speeding up its development of ultra-high density NAND flashes with 200 or more layers. They are likely to come out in the first half of next year.
The most advanced stacking technology applied to current volume production of NAND flashes now stands at 128 layers. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are selling 128-layer NAND flash-based solid state drives (SSDs).