Samsung has announced that it has begun mass production of the industry's first 256 gigabit (Gb) 3D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory based on 48 layers of 3-bit multi-level-cell (MLC) arrays aimed to be used in solid state drives (SSDs).

The new Samsung 256Gb 3D V-NAND flash memory doubles the density of previously available 128Gb NAND flash chips enabling the production of 32GB (256Gb) of memory storage on a single die, which should also double the capacity of Samsung existing SSD lineups.

Samsung introduced its 2nd generation V-NAND (32-layer MLC V-NAND) back in August last year and the new 3rd generation contiues the company's push and lead in the 3D memory market.

The new 3rd generation V-NAND chip will still use the same 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) structure where cell arrays are stacked vertically in 48-layers connected with around 1.8 billion channel holes, with each chip containing over 85.3 billion sells. Each cell can store 3 bits of data, adding up to 256 billion bits of data or 256Gb on a rather small chip.

According to Samsung, the new 48-layer 3-bit MLC 256Gb V-NAND chip also delivers more than a 30 percent reduction in power compared to the previously available 32-layer 128Gb chip and achieves around 40 percent more productivity compared to the same chip.

Samsung noted that the company wants to increase its high-density SSD sales for enterprise and data center storage market with new PCIe NVMe and SAS interface, while also plans to produce 3rd generation V-NAND throughout the remained of this year, accelerating the adoption of "terabyte-level" SSDs.



Source: Samsung.com.