Samsung has started mass production of the 6th gen SSDs featured 256GB three-bit vertical NAND memory. The 6th gen SSD will have industry first 100 layers of NAND cells. It will make a writing speed of 450 microseconds, with a reading response time of 45 microseconds. Samsung’s fabrication labs started work on the company’s new 250GB SATA SSDs this week.
Compared to last-gen 90 layers NAND cell SSDs the performance of the 6th gen SSDs are up by 10 percent and power consumption is down by 15 percent. Production steps have been reduced and chip sizes decreased, which will increase production rates by 20%. The 256Gb 3-bit V-NAND will be used to make SSDs for enterprise PCs and has been supplied to a global PC maker, the South Korean tech giant said.
The sixth-generation V-NAND comes just 13 months after the launch of the previous generation. So the time of mass production reduced by four months.
Samsung explains that it’s using a new ‘channel hole etching’ technology to add 40% more cells to its previous 9x-layer structure. The company does this by building an electrically conductive mould stack of 136 layers, then vertically piercing cylindrical holes from top to bottom, creating a uniform 3D charge trap flash (CTF) cells.
“By bringing cutting-edge 3D memory technology to volume production, we are able to introduce timely memory lineups that significantly raise the bar for speed and power efficiency,” said Kye Hyun Kyung, executive VP of product and development. He also added, “With faster development cycles, we plan to rapidly expand the markets for our high-speed, high-capacity 512GB V-NAND-based solutions.”