Senior hardware digital enthusiasts know that there is a very critical and important metric for measuring flash memory particles, and that is the number of stacked layers.
Flash memory particles are a multi-layer structure formed by stacking multiple memory cells on top of each other, and this scheme can achieve a higher number of storage capacity, while also reducing the volume of a single memory cell, thereby reducing the volume of the entire flash memory particle.
Therefore, the number of manufacturing layers of flash memory particles largely determines the storage capacity and performance of the finished flash memory chips. Generally speaking, the higher the number of manufacturing layers, the smaller the volume of each storage cell, the higher the storage density, the larger the storage capacity, the higher the performance, and at the same time the read and write speeds are faster.
To sum up, now the world's major flash memory particle manufacturers are competing to improve the number of manufacturing layers of their own flash memory particles, and its advantages are all-round, and the industry competition is very fierce.
The overall development speed is also very fast, the latest mainstream manufacturing process has developed from the early 96 layers, 128 layers, 176 layers to the latest 232 layers, and now the 232 layer process has matured and entered the stage of large-scale mass production and commercialization.
So, you may be curious about such a question: now that the 232-layer process has been mature and mass-produced, what is the next process node that is close to maturity and will be put into use? - The answer is 280 floors.
In February this year, the annual International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) will be held, and flash memory manufacturers with important influence in the field will be high, including Samsung, which recently revealed the company's latest progress and plans in this field.
In short, Samsung revealed that the company is about to launch the next generation of QLC NAND V9 process solution, and its biggest attraction is that the particle has a storage density of 285GB mm².
As a reference comparison, SK Hynix's 176-layer QLC flash memory particles have a storage density of 14At 40 square millimeters, Western Digital (the company has acquired Kioxia) 162-layer QLC flash memory chips have a storage density of 13At 86 square millimeters, Micron's 232-layer QLC flash memory particles have a storage density of 1950 mm².
As can be seen from the above data, Samsung's **QLC flash memory particles have a much higher storage density than all competitors' products, and 46 higher than Micron's competitors2%, with a lead of nearly 50%, which can be described as "far ahead", and is expected to become the flash memory particle with the highest data density in the industry.
However, data storage density is only one of the important indicators to measure the flash manufacturing process, and another very important metric is performance, what is the performance of Samsung's V9 QLC flash memory chips?
It is reported that its maximum rate is 32 Gbps, the highest rate of the company's highest-performing QLC is currently 24Gbps, compared to a 33% increase, is not a small increase.
This type of storage chip is mainly aimed at consumer-grade SSDs rather than enterprise-class SSDs, and it is rumored that Samsung will use this flash memory chip to launch the V9 QLC M2 SSD with a capacity of more than 8TB, and its overall performance and experience are expected to be greatly improved, which is very much worth looking forward to.
Samsung has not yet revealed when its 280-layer QLC memory particles will be officially mass-produced and listed, and there is speculation that it is likely to be in the second half of this year, and there is no definite news yet.
Finally, it should be added that the V9 QLC is just one node in Samsung's roadmap to improve the design and manufacturing process of flash memory chips, and Samsung will continue to improve on this basis in the future.
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