Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Micron Technology and SK Hynix all plan to expand their NAND flash production capacities which will boost the overall output worldwide in 2019, according to industry sources.

DRAMeXchange in its January 2018 report already warned of a potential oversupply of NAND flash memory in 2019, as major chip vendors carry out their expansion projects.

Samsung in August 2017 disclosed plans to expand production capacity at its NAND flash memory wafer fab in Xian, northwest China for a total of US$7 billion over the next three years. The additional new capacity at the plant, dedicated to producing the company's 3D V-NAND memory products, is expected to come online in 2019.

Toshiba is constructing Fab 6 at its Yokkaichi operations in Mie (Japan), where the company will be making 3D flash memory chips. The company expects to start operating the new Fab 6 in 2019.

Toshiba has also proposed a new site for Fab 7. The company announced in September 2017 it had selected Kitakami in Japan's Iwate prefecture as the next location to expand its flash memory operations.

DRAMeXchange believes Fab 7 will be ready for mass production in the second half of 2019, with 96-layer and more than 96-layer 3D NAND chips being its main products. Nevertheless, the new fab will not have significant impact on the overall NAND flash output until 2020, DRAMeXchange said.

Meanwhile, Micron Technology is adding a new facility to its existing 12-inch wafer plant for the manufacture of NAND flash memory in Singapore. The new facility is expected to come online by the end of 2019.

SK Hynix is reportedly building a new fab dubbed M15 for the manufacture of 3D NAND flash chips in Cheongju, South Korea. Operations of the new fab is expected to kick off also in 2019.

In addition, China's Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) is looking to enter volume production of 3D NAND flash chips in the second half of 2018. The memory startup will initially provide 32-layer 3D NAND chips and then move forward supplying 64-layer products.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved