Samsung Begins Shipping NAND From New Pyeongtaek Fab

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Samsung has started to ship 4th generation V-NAND from its new Pyeongtaek campus semiconductor fabrication line in South Korea.

Construction began at the Pyeongtaek fab, which is currently the largest single fab in the industry, in May 2015 and concluded last month. The new fab comes just three years after Samsung completed the Xi'an campus in China, and the company plans to construct a second fabrication line in Xi'an in the future, with several sites under review.

“With the dedication and support of our employees, customers and partners, our new Pyeongtaek campus represents a new chapter in Samsung’s semiconductor operations,” said Oh-Hyun Kwon, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Samsung Electronics.

Samsung plans to leverage 64-layer NAND for traditional and emerging markets such as Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and automotive technologies. The company has yet to introduce new consumer or enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) with the new 4th generation NAND technology, but we suspect those products will come in the next few months. Samsung usually introduces new SSDs in Q3 or Q4 with limited availability before increasing supply by Q1 of the next year.

Samsung's new 64-layer NAND comes just in time to help bring the NAND market out of the largest shortage in history. IMFT (Intel Micron Flash Technologies) and Flash Forward (Toshiba and Western Digital's manufacturing joint venture) have also announced 64-layer NAND flash production in recent months with products now shipping. Fellow South Korean NAND manufacturer Sk Hynix today announced production of new 72-layer 3D technology.

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Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hannibal
    Hopefully all these new fabs and new 3D nands help to bring down the prices...
    Reply
  • falchard
    Pff 72 layers. What are they Graphic Designers?
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    19903099 said:
    Hopefully all these new fabs and new 3D nands help to bring down the prices...
    Demand is still increasing and the backlog isn't going to shrink much from having one more fab in play, so I wouldn't count on that too much on prices dropping in the foreseeable future. An extra fab might stabilize them at most.
    Reply
  • gdmaclew
    I sure hope hostilities don't break out on the the Korean peninsula.
    Samsung has a lot of plants that are in the line of fire.
    Reply
  • Ditt44
    Saber rattling is good for business. Once the tech puppet masters figure out how to leverage regional strife like the oil cabals, tech prices are going to be all over the place. Any time China or the US sneezes in the other's direction, we'll see spikes. A wacky North Korea only adds to the equation which will soon enough equal higher prices for all South Korean tech. I can't believe it's taken so long for them to figure this out.
    Reply
  • gdmaclew
    Consumers will only take so much in the way of tech price increases. Then they will speak (or not speak) with their wallets.
    Besides there is a big difference between jacking up your prices trying to leverage the fear in people and not being able to sell anything because your plants have all been blown up, which is what I was referring to.
    Reply
  • Spock_rhp
    What's the point of more NAND or less NAND when you can't get a decent GPU at any price you can afford? I'll not be buying any memory at all until I can afford a GPU again and thus build a new box.
    Reply