Samsung begins mass-producing its 9th generation V-NAND memory chips

9th-generation V-NAND memory chips from Samsung

Samsung is now mass-producing its 9th-generation triple-level cell (TLC) vertical NAND memory chips for high-performance and high-density solid-state drives. The new chips boast a smaller size and a 50% density improvement over the previous generation NAND memory.

Besides its smaller size, Samsung's new V-NAND memory packs several new technologies. In the official blog post, Samsung says it uses cell interference avoidance and cell life extension to make memory last longer and work more reliably. Also, the company uses "channel hole etching to maximize fabrication productivity:

Samsung’s advanced “channel hole etching” technology showcases the company’s leadership in process capabilities. This technology creates electron pathways by stacking mold layers and maximizes fabrication productivity as it enables simultaneous drilling of the industry’s highest cell layer count in a double-stack structure.

As the number of cell layers increase, the ability to pierce through higher cell numbers becomes essential, demanding more sophisticated etching techniques.

Samsung's 9th-generation vertical NAND uses the new "Toggle 5.1" NAND flash interface, which improves data input/out speeds by 33% up to 3.2Gbps. Samsung says it plans to use new memory chips and the interface for high-performance PCIe 5.0 SSDs. As of right now, the budget-friendly 990 EVO is the only PCIe 5.0 solid-state drive from Samsung.

Finally, technological improvements in the new V-NAND memory from Samsung allowed the company to decrease power consumption by 10%.

Samsung is already producing triple-level cell V-NAND memory, and the production of quad-level cell V-NAND will begin in the second half of 2024.

We are excited to deliver the industry’s first 9th-gen V-NAND which will bring future applications leaps forward. In order to address the evolving needs for NAND flash solutions, Samsung has pushed the boundaries in cell architecture and operational scheme for our next-generation product.

Through our latest V-NAND, Samsung will continue to set the trend for the high-performance, high-density solid-state drive (SSD) market that meets the needs for the coming AI generation.

You can read more about the 9th-generation V-NAND from Samsung in a post on the Samsung Newsroom website.