Samsung stages NAND fight back at 2X-nm

LONDON – Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has said it is now producing 64-Gbit NAND flash memory with three bits per memory cell on a 20-nm class process. The memory chip is suitable for use in USB flash drives and secure digital memory cards.

Samsung claimed it had introduced a "20nm-class" 32-Gbit multilevel cell NAND flash memory in April 2010, although this led to speculation that the company was coining the phrase to try and make a 27-nm process appear on a par with 26-, 25- and 24-nm process claims from its rivals. In August Toshiba Corp. announced that is has started mass production of 64-Gbit NAND flash memories using a 24-nm CMOS manufacturing process technology and thereby taken the lead in geometry and NAND flash density.

An alternative view is that as process geometry shrinks below 30-nm measurements of gate length and metal pitch become variable; even line edge roughness can make a difference. Samsung and others are starting to refer to the 3X generation as a node with critical dimensions somewhere between 30- and 40-nm. Similarly the 2X-node or 20-nm class refers to a process with critical dimensions between 20-nm and 30-nm.

Samsung's 20nm-class, 64-Gbit NAND flash memory has a 60 percent higher productivity level than Samsung's existing 30nm-class, 32-Gbit NAND. The device also offers improved performance by applying the Toggle DDR 1.0 specification, a step up from the Single Data Rate data transmission of the 30nm-class NAND chips.

The availability 8-Gbytes of storage in a single chip will trigger the acceptance of Toggle DDR-based high-performance flash in a variety of applications include smartphones, Samsung said.

"Samsung has repeatedly provided the market with leading-edge NAND flash solutions, including the introduction of 30nm-class, 32-Gbit 3-bit NAND flash last November," said Seijin Kim, vice president of flash memory planning at Samsung, in a statement. "By now entering into full production of 20nm-class 64Gbit 3-bit devices, we expect to accelerate adoption of our high-performance NAND solutions that use Toggle DDR technology, for applications that also require high-density NAND."

Related links and articles:

Hynix ramps 26-nm NAND flash memory chips

Intel, Micron take NAND flash memory lead, roll 25-nm chip

Toshiba rolls 24-nm NAND flash memory