According to industry sources, Samsung Electronics’ latest storage chip development roadmap indicates that the company plans to produce at least 400-layer cell vertical stacking vertical NAND by 2026 to maximize capacity and performance.

Samsung Electronics plans to adopt a new bonding technology, creating cells and peripheral devices on separate wafers, and then bonding them. This method will achieve “ultra-high” NAND stacks with large storage capacity and excellent heat dissipation performance, which are very suitable for ultra-high capacity SSDs in AI data centers. This chip is called Bonding Vertical NAND Flash, or BV NAND for short, and its bit density per unit area will be increased by 1.6 times.

Samsung Electronics plans to launch V11 NAND by 2027, further developing its stacking technology, with a 50% increase in data input and output speeds. The goal is to develop NAND chips with more than 1,000 layers by 2030 to achieve higher density and storage capacity.

SK Hynix has also begun the development of 400-layer NAND Flash and is currently developing process technologies and equipment, with the goal of achieving mass production by the end of next year and full-scale mass production by the first half of 2026.

Kioxia has indicated in its technology roadmap that the number of 3D NAND layers will grow at an annual rate of 1.33 times, reaching a level of 1,000 layers by 2027, with NAND chip density reaching 100 Gbit/mm²

This year, as the NAND processes of storage manufacturers have been iterated, the supply of NAND with more than 200 layers has increased, and high-density NAND has gradually made progress in market applications:

Samsung’s 236-layer V8 TLC NAND production has increased significantly, and 290-layer V9 TLC/QLC NAND has begun mass production;

SK Hynix has expanded the application of 238-layer NAND in enterprise-level SSDs and launched 321-layer NAND Flash;

Kioxia and Western Digital have promoted the acceleration of 218-layer BiCS8 NAND in OEM manufacturers, and 2Tb QLC NAND produced using BiCS8 and CMOS bonding technology has begun sampling;

Micron has mass-produced 276-layer G9 TLC NAND and has adopted it in SSDs for client-side OEMs.

Samsung Electronics undergoes four rounds of massive layoffs

Samsung Electronics to Implement Four Rounds of Voluntary Retirement, Contract Manufacturing Team to be Reduced by Over 30%.

According to a high-ranking official at Samsung Electronics on November 2nd, the first round of voluntary retirement will be offered to CL3 (Associate Manager level) employees who have worked for more than 15 years but have not received a rank in the last 5 years. The second round will be for employees who have worked continuously for over 10 years; if the target is not met, the third round will be expanded to all employees. It is reported that the final fourth round will be conducted as part of normal operations. The conditions for voluntary retirement are expected to include a compensation package totaling approximately 400 million won (currently about 2.064 million yuan), which includes a severance payment based on CL3 and four months’ salary of 380 million won.

Especially, the 8-inch contract manufacturing and technology team will see a reduction of over 30%. It is understood that Samsung is considering a proposal for voluntary retirement for unpaid employees. This comes after Samsung Electronics recorded a profit shock in the third quarter of this year due to a decline in competitiveness in its flagship semiconductor business, triggering a crisis theory within the group.

This is interpreted as part of a reform plan to overcome aging business environments and poor performance.

Samsung recently announced third-quarter revenue of 79.1 trillion won, slightly exceeding the expected 79 trillion won, and operating profit of 9.18 trillion won, which exceeded the expected 9.1 trillion won, but was significantly lower than the estimated 11.456 trillion won in operating profit by the London Stock Exchange. Samsung’s Vice Chairman and newly appointed head of the Device Solutions (DS) division, Jeon Yong-hyun, apologized rarely after releasing the performance guidance.

Among them, Samsung’s semiconductor division announced an operating profit of 3.86 trillion won (about 2.8 billion USD) for the third quarter, a 40% decrease from the previous quarter.

Although its memory chip division benefited from strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and traditional server products, Samsung stated that “inventory adjustments had a negative impact on mobile demand.” The company said it is also dealing with the issue of “increased supply of mature process products from China.”

Additionally, according to insiders on November 1st, Samsung Electronics has shut down over 30% of the 4nm, 5nm, and 7nm wafer contract manufacturing production lines at its Pyeongtaek 2 (P2) and 3 (P3) factories, and plans to expand the suspension of production to about 50% by the end of the year. The company intends to gradually halt production while monitoring customer orders.

According to reports, Samsung Electronics is preparing to Import its first High NA EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography equipment in early 2025, marking a significant advancement for the South Korean tech giant in the field of advanced semiconductor manufacturing. This cutting-edge technology, exclusively provided by Netherlands ASML, is crucial for processes below 2nm. South Korean industry observers anticipate that Samsung will accelerate the development of its 1nm chip commercialization.

Each High NA EUV lithography machine is priced at approximately $350 million (about 2.5 billion yuan), significantly higher than ASML’s standard EUV series, which ranges from $180 million to $200 million. The High NA system boasts a resolution of 8nm and a transistor density triple times that of the Low NA system, thus offering immense value.

According to relevant reports， Indicate that Samsung’s first High NA EUV equipment—the ASML EXE:5000 model—is expected to hit the market in early 2025. Given the complexity of semiconductor equipment installation, which often involves lengthy testing phases, the EXE:5000 is projected to become operational in the second quarter of 2025.

High NA EUV technology surpasses existing EUV systems by enabling the creation of finer circuit designs, making it suitable for chips operating below 5nm, such as CPUs and GPUs, which are system semiconductors. While standard EUV is effective for 5nm and below processes, High NA EUV can further achieve circuit dimensions below 2nm, thereby enhancing performance and reducing the number of exposures, which in turn lowers production costs. The latest research conducted by Belgium’s Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) in collaboration with ASML shows that a single High NA EUV exposure can produce complete logic and memory circuits.

This development signifies Samsung’s first foray into High NA EUV technology. Previously, the company had collaborated with IMEC on circuit processing research. Samsung plans to use its own equipment to accelerate the development of advanced nodes and has set a goal to commercialize a 1.4nm process by 2027, potentially paving the way for 1nm production.

Globally, competition among semiconductor giants such as TSMC, Intel, and Samsung is Competition heats up as they vie to secure High NA EUV equipment for processes below 2nm. Intel was the first to obtain the equipment in December 2023, followed by TSMC in the third quarter of 2024. Although Samsung’s order came later, achieving stable production could be the key to determining industry leadership.

Samsung plans to use the High NA EUV equipment it will receive in early 2025 for research purposes and intends to Import dedicated mass production equipment shortly thereafter. In a meeting with ASML in the third quarter of 2024, Samsung indicated that it would reconsider the number of High NA EUV equipment units it plans to purchase, which could reduce its initial order by two units. The company initially planned to Import the EXE:5000 in the fourth quarter of 2024, with follow-up models EXE:5200, EXE:5400, and EXE:5600 to be Imported over the next decade.

And the Korean government has begun to crack down

Last week, the American storage manufacturer Micron Technology suddenly announced the mass production of 24GB 8H HBM3E, which will be used in Nvidia’s H200 GPU and will be shipped in the second quarter.

SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which have been leading in HBM products, were shocked. After a week of investigation, the Korean government began to take action, after all, HBM chip technology has been listed as a strategic core technology in Korea.

Statistics show that in the past five years, the Korean government has dealt with as many as 96 cases of core technology leakage. By industry, semiconductors are the most common, with as many as 38 cases, followed by displays with 16 cases, and electronic products and automobiles with 9 cases each.

The estimated economic losses exceed 26 trillion won, and the number of cases per year is increasing, from 14 cases in 2019 to 23 cases in 2023.

Court orders prohibit working for Micron

Amidst the intensifying competition in the memory chip industry, a few days ago, the Seoul court made a ruling to prohibit former HBM researchers from SK Hynix from working for Micron Technology before July 26th, including employment, work, or providing consulting and labor services for Micron’s subsidiaries, offices, and affiliates.

If the injunction is violated, the individual will be fined 10 million won (about $7,511) per day.

This employee has been signing non-compete agreements with SK Hynix every year since 2015, including clauses prohibiting employment in rival companies, and also pledging not to disclose any trade secrets before leaving the company.

In July 2022, the employee chose to resign and signed a non-compete agreement with SK Hynix, prohibiting them from switching to the same industry within the next two years.

Subsequently, the employee joined Micron Technology, and upon receiving the news, SK Hynix immediately filed a lawsuit in August 2023.

The court believed that the technology leakage would benefit Micron Technology, as it could significantly shorten the time to acquire technology capabilities comparable to SK Hynix in the same field, while causing significant damage to SK Hynix’s core competitiveness.

It is widely believed in the industry that Micron Technology’s successful strategy, skipping the production of the fourth-generation HBM3 and directly transitioning to the fifth-generation HBM3E, has strengthened its position in the HBM market, largely due to because Talent poaching.

Micron Technology announced the mass production of HBM3E, but whether it passed Nvidia’s quality tests is still unknown. Meanwhile, in terms of yield and stability, there is a significant gap between Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Hundreds of employees jumped to Micron Technology

It is reported that hundreds of employees from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have already gone to work for Micron Technology.

For Korean companies, the departure of a large number of key employees in the advanced semiconductor technology field to their competitors, such as Micron, poses a significant threat to Korea’s storage industry’s technological secrets and competitiveness.

According to data statistics, publicly available information indicates that at least 110 SK Hynix employees have joined Micron, and the actual number may be even higher.

Meanwhile, hundreds of researchers from Samsung Electronics have also joined Micron. With local recruitment included, it is expected that the number of resignations from these two Korean companies will be even higher.

Not only is Micron Technology poaching talent, but even Intel is also eyeing employees from these two companies, posing a high risk of talent loss for Korean technical personnel.

In July of last year, a Samsung Electronics engineer who was preparing to work for Intel was sentenced to 18 months in prison because this person attempted to leak 33 files containing core technology of Samsung Electronics’ foundry, which were eventually discovered.

Samsung Electronics set up a company in the United States to focus on HBM research.

However, an employee of Samsung Electronics working in the United States, who had been involved in HBM project development, subsequently joined Micron, continuing to research HBM products.

SK Hynix has an even more exaggerated case. A former employee once received awards from the Korean government for contributing to the development of HBM2E and played a decisive role in ensuring the source technology for 3D stacked HBM and participated in the development of double data rate DDR5 prototypes. However, this employee is now about to join Micron Technology.

Currently, SK Hynix is on high alert against Micron Technology, as the latter is rapidly catching up with Korea’s advanced storage industry technology.

Micron’s HBM3E will be manufactured using 1β technology, equivalent to 12nm, which SK Hynix also adopts. Samsung relies on 14nm node 1α manufacturing.

Reports show that last year, SK Hynix hold a 53% market share in the HBM market, Samsung Electronics hold 38%, and Micron hold 9%.

This year, SK Hynix has invested 1.3 trillion won in advanced packaging to increase production capacity, using MR-MUF (massive reflow underfill) packaging technology. This technology injects liquefied protective material between stacked chips to protect the equipment and prevent heat dissipation, which is SK Hynix core competitiveness in HBM.

Micron is also trying to use this technology, but it appears that it will take some time for Micron to catch up with SK Hynix.

Samsung Electronics faces a double setback

To demonstrate its technical capabilities, Samsung Electronics will continue to strive to become a partner of Nvidia.

At Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference on March 18th, Samsung Electronics will showcase HBM3E chips and introduce CXL technology, hoping to become an open industry standard for improving product performance and efficiency.

For Samsung Electronics, this is a challenging task. It will be difficult to become a new supplier for Nvidia without significant technological breakthroughs. Of course, Samsung Electronics has just begun to make efforts, and there is no apparent progress for the time being.

Samsung Electronics has decided to make the HBM division a permanent division under the chip department. This department includes product design, solutions, and other exclusive development teams for HBM, which will also strengthen the early stable yield of the product.

Samsung 3nm advanced technology

One Samsung engineer was responsible for 3nm advanced technology and worked until July 2021, then switched to work for Intel in August of the same year.

Another engineer worked for Samsung Electronics until the end of 2023, and now works at Intel’s wafer foundry, previously responsible for mass production using the 14nm process at Samsung.

A certain employee of Samsung Electronics, working in the NAND department, went directly to Micron Technology’s NAND department in 2018.

In addition, Samsung Electronics also faces threats of employee strikes. It was revealed that negotiations between Samsung’s union and the company were not going well, and both sides were angry.

The union demanded an 8.1% wage increase, while Samsung only proposed a 2.5% increase. Later, Samsung increased the base salary increase to 2.8%, extended long-term service holidays and remaining holidays, provided comprehensive medical examinations for employees’ families, and the second round of negotiations began on March 8th, ending without agreement.

Union members stated that during negotiations for the 2024 wage increase, a senior Samsung representative

Huawei Overtakes Dell in All-Flash array by Q3

In the past, I used to prefer using images of beautiful ladies on the cover because most of our readers were male. Today, let’s change the style and cater for our female readers.

Over the weekend, I spent some time on the latest market data for external storage in third 2023 quarter, which is released by Gartner. Now I’m sharing my analysis with everyone.Firstly, let’s take a closer look at the global External Controller-Based (ECB) storage market in 3Q23.

We observed that global ECB storage in Q3 had declined by 12.8%, it was a challenging situation. Refer to the data, leader Dell had declined by 27.6%, with a market share of 23.1% only. On the one hand, it should be a lowest record for Dell year-on-year. On the other hand, Huawei had grown by 7%, achieving a market share exceeding 20% for the first time. It was possibly the best performance so far. Upon closer inspection, the Q3 sales of Huawei in China market experienced a slight decline. However, its overseas markets were generally growing, maintaining a positive growing trend. Huawei has firmly secured the second place, and left NetApp far behind. Moreover, it is starting to threaten Dell’s dominant position.

According to the data from Solid State Arrays (SSA) or an all-flash array, the global market has declined by 3.5% in 3Q23. However, Huawei had been increasing by one-third, while Dell declined by 26%. This marks history that Huawei surpasses Dell by the first time, and hits the first place of all-flash Array by 3Q23.

Of course, the most valuable reference is to check the overall situation from Q1 to Q3 in 2023

Comparing to the first three quarters of the 2023, i.e., 3Q23YTD, global ECB storage declined by 9%. Dell maintained the top spot but declined by 14%. Meanwhile, Huawei caught its second place, growing by 11%, with a market share exceeding 15%.

If we only focused on SSA all-flash, there was a global decline of 2.5%. Despite Dell was declining, its first position remains relatively stable. NetApp, Huawei, and Pure Storage all had shares around 15%, statistically we considered thaty they tied for second. Therefore, the ultimate winner for the year will depend on the fourth quarter.

Now let’s explore into the performance of storage based on different purposes.

In terms of primary storage, there was an overall decline of 10.7%. Dell, Huawei, and NetApp are the top three.

For secondary storage, there was a slight decline of 0.3%. Dell and Huawei are taking main share, both of them exceed 20%.

In the backup and recovery market, there was a decline of 11.8%. Dell maintains an absolute monopoly with a market share of 68.8%. Huawei is growing rapidly, but its share is close to 9%.

Finally, let’s compare the situations in China with United States.

In the first three quarters of 2023, the ECB storage in US had declined by 14.4%, indicating a terrible situation. Dell’s market share was 38%. Pure Storage surpassed NetApp and took the second place.

In China, there was also facing a decline of 5.4%. However, Huawei maintained growth, its market share had increased to 48.7%.

Suddenly China’s SSA market also declined by 3.6%. Nevertheless, Huawei continued to rise in a downward trend, the market share was reaching 56.4%.

Conclusion

Based on the Q3 data, Huawei is maintaining steady growth while Dell is experiencing a significant decline. If this trend continues, it’s highly possible for Huawei to take the first place of global storage one day. However, my preliminary judgment is that it might not happen in the short term. The U.S. stock market is currently going well, and economic indicators are favorable. The storage market might rebound next year. Nevertheless, Huawei’s achievement of acquiring the top spot for all-flash in Q3 has brought pressure to Dell. Even though Huawei cannot enter the largest storage market in US, its share in storage market continues to grow steadily. Regardless of the changes in the external economic environment, it is not surprised that Huawei may far beyond Dell one day.

Industry sources predicted on August 1 that the third quarter of 2022 will see a 5% dip in memory chip prices, the biggest drop since 2019. A single chip now costs less than $3, and companies that make semiconductors, including Samsung and Hynix, will be

Many people find the computer’s operating speed gets slower after SSD is used for a long time. This is because SSD is over occupied or be erased and written for too many times. Try reinstall your computer to solve the problem.

The market share of all flash memory has dropped in last year, so it was outperformed by HDD/hybrid storage. However, with the launch of many products with high cost performance, it is predicted that all-flash memory will bounce back from its failure.