Earlier this year we learned about Samsung's ambitions to develop the industry's first 160-layer or higher NAND flash memory chips, but at that time there wasn't enough information as to how many layers, precisely, the company's 7th gen V-NAND flash will have. Now, according to a new report by The Bell citing industry sources, Samsung has settled on a 176-layer configuration for the next-gen solution.
Interestingly, Samsung was reportedly aiming for its 7th generation V-NAND (3D NAND) flash memory chips to have as many as 192 layers, but the company ultimately decided on a lower number of 176 layers for reasons that have not been explained. Regardless, Samsung plans to push the 7th generation V-NAND into mass production in April 2021, at least according to the latest bit of news.
This sort of falls in line with another recent report regarding Samsung's expansion plans at its chip manufacturing facility in Pyeongtaek. It claimed that Samsung wants to invest in Line 2 at Pyeongtaek in order to increase the manufacturing capacity of memory chips. Samsung initially said it wants to mass produce V-NAND flash memory chips at Line 2 beginning with the second half of 2021, but in light of the recent report, the company might be able to start mass production earlier than initially planned.
Samsung remains the number one NAND flash manufacturer in the world but the competition is keeping up. SK Hynix is now researching 176-layer NAND as well, and Intel announced its 144-layer NAND flash solution earlier this year.
