Samsung beats rivals to mass production of 256Gbit 3D Nand flash chips

Samsung Electronics announced today that it has begun mass producing 256 Gb 3D V-NAND flash memory chips for use in solid state drives (SSDs).

“With the introduction of our 3rd generation V-NAND flash memory to the global market, we can now provide the best advanced memory solutions with even higher efficiency based on improved performance, power utilization and manufacturing productivity, thereby accelerating growth of the high-performance and the high-density SSD markets”, said Jun Young-hyun, president of the memory business at Samsung Electronics.

According to Samsung, the new 48-layer 256Gb TLC NAND flash chip will be 30 per cent more eco-friendly than its predecessor, which had 128Gb capacity, while also being 40% smaller, something that will significantly reduce costs.

Samsung says its new chips will “easily double the capacity” of its existing SSD line-ups, facilitating the production of multi-terabyte SSDs.

Since NAND flash memory does not require power to retain data, it is used in devices in which larger files are frequently uploaded and replaced – such as smartphones, digital cameras, USB drives and SSDs. In total, each chip contains over 85.3 billion cells.

In contrast to planar NAND, Samsung’s V-NAND incorporates a 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) structure of 48 stacked array layers, like a miniature skyscraper.

The 48-layer 3D V-NAND is Samsung’s third generation memory design. SanDisk and Toshiba said that we wouldn’t see products with the partner’s chip until 2016, so that leaves some time to bring new hardware to market. Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, Intel and Micron are all working on advancing NAND technology, so hopefully consumers will win with competitive pricing as the race for more storage heats up.

He also stated that the company was bound to use all the excellent features of the V-NAND flashes in a bid to increase their premium level business.

“The company said PM1633 is 2.5” 12gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) SAS SSD and designed to meet the requirements of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface based systems.