Samsung is aiming for AI storage dominance by starting mass production of 1TB QLC NAND chips aimed at enterprise servers. But don’t worry, it might show up in consumer SSDs someday too.
Samsung says it has begun mass production of its 1TB quad-level cell (QLC) 9th Gen V-NAND, an industry first. The development follows production of triple-level cell (TLC) 9th Gen V-NAND earlier in 2024, and reflects a broader industry shift from TLC to QLC technology to meet growing demand for higher-capacity and more efficient storage solutions.
The new QLC V-NAND integrates innovative technologies such as Channel Hole Etching, which enables a higher number of layers through a double-stack structure, resulting in approximately 86% higher bit density compared to the previous generation QLC V-NAND. Samsung says the increase in density allows for greater storage capacity in the same physical space, meeting the needs of applications that require large amounts of data storage.
Thanks to Designed Mold, Predictive Program and Low-Power Design technologies, reliability is increased by 20%, writing performance is doubled, input/output speed is improved by 60%, and power consumption during read/write operations is reduced by up to 50%.
A shift from TLC to QLC
The industry is experiencing a shift from TLC to QLC NAND flash memory, driven by the need for higher storage capacities and cost efficiency. QLC NAND stores four bits per cell instead of three, effectively increasing storage density. This transition enables manufacturers to produce SSDs with larger capacities at potentially lower costs, which is particularly important for data centers and AI applications that require massive amounts of storage.
“By successfully starting mass production of QLC 9th-generation V-NAND just four months after the TLC version, we are able to offer a full range of advanced SSD solutions that meet the needs of the AI era,” said SungHoi Hur, Executive Vice President and Head of Flash Product & Technology at Samsung Electronics. “As the enterprise SSD market continues to grow rapidly with increased demand for AI applications, we will continue to solidify our leadership in the segment through our QLC and TLC 9th-generation V-NAND.”
Applications of the QLC V-NAND will begin in branded consumer products and then expand to mobile Universal Flash Storage (UFS), PCs, and server SSDs for customers including cloud service providers.