Samsung announces 20nm 3-bit 64Gb NAND chips

Samsung today announced the industry's first production of a 3-bit-cell, 64 gigabit NAND flash using a 20 nanometer process technology. The 20nm-class NAND has a 60 percent higher productivity level than the 30nm-class, offering improved performance by applying Toggle Double Data Rate (DDR) 1.0 specifications, compared to those of Single Data Rate (SDR) based 30nm-class NAND chips.

Samsung produces about 40 percent of the world's NAND flash storage. The Korean company expects the availability of storage density as high as eight gigabytes (64Gb) in a single chip will trigger widespread acceptance of Toggle DDR-based high-performance flash in USB flash drives and SD cards, as well as smart phones and SSDs, replacing previous four gigabyte (32Gb) devices in the market that Samsung started producing just this past April.

"Samsung has repeatedly provided the market with leading-edge NAND flash solutions, including the introduction of 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND flash last November," Seijin Kim, Samsung vice president of Flash Memory Planning and Enabling, said in a statement. "By now entering into full production of 20nm-class 64Gb 3-bit devices, we expect to accelerate adoption of our high-performance NAND solutions that use Toggle DDR technology, for applications that also require high-density NAND."