No other recourse if the rate of capacity and performance growth is to be maintained

Oct 5, 2013 07:44 GMT  ·  By

Until not long ago, all semiconductors were built in more or less the same way, by growing, etching, or otherwise integrating transistors on a die. Now, though, 3D manufacturing is gaining steam.

In fact, it is the belief of analyst firm IHS iSuppli that all NAND Flash chips will be made on 3D technology sooner or later.

NAND Flash chips are used in the making of pretty much every relevant storage device out there other than HDDs.

Which is to say, solid state drives (SSDs), flash drives, memory cards (SDHC, SDXC, microSDHC, microSDXC, CompactFlash, etc.), embedded storage, and so on. That is why ensuring their continued advancement is so important.

According to IHS, by 2017, 65.2% (almost two thirds) of all NAND Flash memory chips shipped worldwide will be made on 3D processes.

Compared to this year's 1%, that's a colossal rise. A massive shift in manufacturing tactics for the likes of Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, etc.

Surprisingly, 2014 will be a fairly weak year too, with just 5.2% of the NAND Flash market expected to be made up for 3D-contrsucted chips.

The first big leap will be in 2015, to 30.2%, after which 3D NAND will move to 49.8% of the total industry in 2016.

“There’s widespread agreement that just one or two generations may be left before NAND flash made using conventional planar semiconductor technology reaches its theoretical limit,” said Dee Robinson, senior analyst, memory and storage for IHS.

“As lithographies shrink further, performance and reliability may become too degraded for NAND to be used in anything but the very lowest-cost consumer products. Because NAND suppliers are compelled to continue building products with higher densities and lower prices, they will migrate to 3D manufacturing quickly in the coming years,” said Dee Robinson, senior analyst, memory and storage for IHS.