The memory industry is another one of those industries that I enjoyed because of my lifelong interest in computers & technology. So much so that when I was in the 8th grade, back in 1999, I did my science fair project on the topic. It was titled, “Do you cram your ram?” And basically involved testing the startup speeds of different applications, including Microsoft Word. Anyways, below are some various statistics about the industry.
· NAND
o Samsung
§ 10/05/2016 – Samsung Electronics plans to mass-produce its fourth-generation 64-layer 3D chip by the end of this year, widening the technological gap with its competitors.
§ 08/11/2016 – When Samsung releases a 64-layer V NAND-based SSDs, they will be able to mass-produce 15.32-plus TB SSDs for servers. Since A 15.32TB product fetches about 10 million won, demand will lopsided toward Samsung Electronics, further boosting profitability.
§ 08/01/2016 – Samsung to have 64 layer 3D NAND in production by Q4
o Toshiba/Sandisk (WDC)
§ 10/11/2016 – Toshiba has said it will move into volume production of 3D NAND with 64 layers during the first six months of 2017.
§ 08/27/2016 – started pilot production of 64-layer 3D NAND.
o Micron/Intel
§ 10/18/2016 – XPOINT “Just a correction that the team here just caught me on, I think I had my ears off. So onthe 3D XPoint it will be qualified at the end of this quarter. We’re shipping thousands of samples, to customers – we’reshipping samples already. We’ll ship thousands through this quarter and it ramps in 2017. I think I said by mistake,2018. I’m sorry I’m just – too many years that we’re talking through here. So ramp in 2017, revenue growth in 2017.Samples, thousands in the fourth quarter and qualified at the end of the quarter. Sorry for that confusion.”
§ 08/09/2016 – “Will we go to 64 tiers [in 3D NAND]? Absolutely,” Bingham continued. “That’s what we’re calling Gen. 2, but I don’t know that we’ve announced the timing for that yet.” The new Mobile 3D NAND is based on Micron’s 8GB 3D NAND die, which is made up by 32-layers of NAND flash cells stacked like a microscopic skyscraper. The die measures just 2 3/8-in (60.217mm) square.
§ 06/20/2016 Micron has Gen 2 wafers coming already, and it will ramp up production as it moves into 2017. The “leading-edge bit crossover” section of the graphic above indicates that the early stages will ramp in Q1, then increase dramatically in Q2 2017.
o Sk Hynix
§ 11/08/2016 – SK hynix to mass-produce 48-layer 3D-NAND chips from this month
§ 08/14/2016 – SK Hynix has introduced the fourth generation 3D NAND
o DRAM
§ Samsung
· 08/14/2016 – Samsung Electronics’ DRAM sales rose 8.7 percent in the second quarter to $4.32 billion (about 4.75 trillion won) from $3.97 billion in the first quarter.
§ SK Hynix
· 08/14/2016 – SK Hynix also recorded $2.41 billion in the second quarter in sales, up 4 percent from $2.32 billion in the first quarter.
§ Micron
· 08/14/2016 U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc., the third largest company in the DRAM market, saw its sales in the second quarter rise 8.8 percent on quarter to drive up market share by 0.5 percentage point.
§ Others
· 08/14/2016 Meanwhile, sales of Taiwan-based semiconductor companies, Nanya and Powerchip Technology, in the second quarter declined 6.3 percent to 12.3 percent from the previous quarter.
