Samsung is mass producing the industry's first and its second generation V-NAND flash memory based on the latest 3D technology that boosts power efficiency.
Samsung, the biggest smartphone manufacturer and a leader in memory technology, is stepping up its game in the flash storage space with a new premium line of solid-state drives and has also started mass producing the industry's first vertically stacked 32-layer NAND flash memory based on the latest 3D technology.
With the new technology, Samsung is building on its existing V-NAND technology that until now stacked 24 storage layers. The vertically stacked layers transfer data using an interconnect process technology. The first generation of V-NAND was announced in August last year, when the company promised to stack more than 24 cell layers and develop advanced products with 215GB and 1TB NAND flash memory in the next few years. It appears the Korean tech giant is well ahead of its schedule to achieve its goal.
"We increased the availability of our 3D V-NAND by introducing an extensive V-NAND SSD line-up that covers the PC market in addition to data centers," Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president of memory sales and marketing at Samsung, said in a press release published by Business Wire, Wednesday. "Look for us to provide a consistent, timely supply of high-performance, high-density V-NAND SSDs as well as core V-NAND chips for IT customers globally, contributing to fast market adoption of 3D NAND technology."
The V-NAND-based SSDs features twice the write speed than the planar NAND flash memory and up to ten times reliability, while consuming half the power, Samsung said. The vertical stacking is widely seen as a new way to add more storage in smaller devices.
In addition to the 32-layer 3D NAND flash memory, Samsung also announced SSDs based on the second generation V-NAND flash memory. The new lineup offers SSDs in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage options, which will mainly target high-end PCs. Samsung has also revealed plans to extend its 3D-based SSD lineup with more entries that offer higher reliability and density to meet different consumer standards.
