From PC World: Three dimensional NAND (3D NAND) is expected to dominate the solid-state drive (SSD) industry beginning next year, as suppliers reduce their shipments of flash storage based on traditional 2D or planar NAND, according to a new report.
According to DRAMeXchange’s latest forecast, NAND flash manufacturers are focusing their efforts on converting fabrication plants to 3D NAND, which is denser, faster and less expensive to produce than traditional 2D NAND.
DRAMeXchange forecasts that the market supply of 2D NAND flash will begin to fall sharply in the first quarter. By the third quarter of 2017, the share of 2D NAND in the industry’s total bit shipments will be under 50%.
“Since the second quarter of 2016, suppliers have sped up their respective 3D NAND development process,” Sean Yang, research director of DRAMeXchange, said in a statement. “By the end of this year, 3D NAND is estimated to represent about 30% of the total flash bit shipments.”
However, the NAND flash industry’s wafer capacity is projected to increase by a marginal annual rate of 6% in 2017. That’s because as the pace of the industry-wide transition to 3D NAND architecture accelerates, supply of 2D NAND memory will drop sharply, leading to shortages next year, Yang noted.
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