China conquers the most advanced 128-tier flash memory: how strong is it? When can I wrestle with Samsung?

Chips are divided into storage chips and non-storage chips, among which there are many kinds of storage chips, which can be divided into main storage chips and auxiliary storage chips according to their uses. The former is also called memory chip (memory), which can directly exchange data with CPU with high speed, small capacity and high price. The latter is an external memory chip (external memory), which refers to memory chips other than memory and cache. Generally, this kind of memory chip can still save data after power failure, with slow speed, large capacity and low price.

The most important memory chips are DRAM and NAND flash. In 20 18, China imported chips of $31200 million (China imported more chips than oil at the highest), of which memory chips accounted for 39% of the total imports of integrated circuits, reaching $123.06 billion. Of the 654.38+023.06 billion USD memory chips, up to 97% are DRAM and flash memory.

1968, after a long period of research, Danard finally invented a memory cell based on single transistor design, which can store a little data. Since then, the monopoly of memory chips has been transferred from the United States to Japan, and now it has been transferred to South Korea. Samsung, Micron and Hynix have occupied 96% market share of global DRAM chips.

1984, Fujio of Toshiba first put forward the concept of ULSI, but Toshiba did not attach importance to it, and Intel first developed it. Undaunted, Fujio put forward the concept of NAND in 1987, and developed it with colleagues of 10 according to their own characteristics. It took only three years to achieve success.

Now flash memory technology has been developed for 26 years, and it is monopolized by Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, Hynix and Intel in the United States, Japan and South Korea.

These enterprises have mastered the pricing power of memory and flash memory and manipulated the prices at will. 20 10 Samsung and other companies illegally manipulated the price of flash memory and were fined at high prices in Europe and America.

At present, the mainstream flash memory technology is 3D NADA, and 3D NAND is a new type of flash memory. By stacking memory cells together, the limitation caused by 2D or planar NAND flash memory is solved.

Ordinary NAND is a bungalow, so 3D NAND is a high-rise building, and the building area has suddenly increased. Theoretically, it can be infinitely superimposed.

The increase in the number of layers means that the requirements for technology and materials will increase. In addition, when the number of stacked layers increases, the height of the storage stack will also increase, but the thickness of each layer will decrease.

With each upgrade, the stack thickness will become 1.8 times and the layer thickness will become 0.86 times.

Before 20 16, the memory chip market in China was zero, so it was easily blocked by foreign countries. At this time, Ziguang Group established Changjiang Storage to conquer flash memory technology.

From 20 16 to 20 17, Ziguang Group spent $ 10 billion, and the R&D team of 1000 people spent two years successfully developing the first 32-layer 3D NAND memory chip in China. This indicates that China memory chips have achieved the start of 0.

20 19 May, Ziguang successfully developed a 64-layer stack flash memory chip, which is only behind Samsung's 96-layer stack 1 generation. You know, 64-layer stacked 3D NAND flash memory was mass-produced in 20 18.

According to the product plan, flash memory manufacturers such as Samsung and Toshiba will mass-produce 128-layer stacked flash memory in 2020, but Ziguang skipped the research and development of 96-layer and directly attacked 128-layer flash memory.

13 in April 2020, Changjiang storage technology co., ltd announced that its 128 layer qlc3d3nand flash memory (model: X2-6070) was successfully developed, and it has passed the verification in terminal storage products such as SSD of several controller manufacturers, ahead of Samsung and other enterprises.

Changjiang Storage X2-6070 is the industry's first 128-layer QLC 3D NAND flash memory, with the highest storage density per unit area, the highest I/O transmission speed and the highest single NAND flash memory chip capacity.

At the same time, a 128-layer 5 12Gb TLC(3 bits/cell) flash memory chip (model: X2-9060) with a single block capacity of 5 12Gb(64GB) was released to meet the needs of different application scenarios.

According to Techinsihts' 3D flash roadmap and manufacturer's data, Samsung's1/kloc-0+layer (with different levels of 128 and 136)3D flash core capacity can achieve QLC 1Tb. The core capacity of Micron's 128 layer, SK Hynix's 128 layer and Intel's 144 layer QLC flash memory is also 1Tb. Toshiba/Western Digital Corporation's 1 12-layer BiCS 5 technology flash stack can realize the capacity of QLC1.33tb..

In terms of capacity, X2-6070 QLC flash memory of Changjiang Storage is at the same level as Toshiba/Western Digital, which is 33% higher than other manufacturers.

In addition to capacity, it also depends on performance. The IO speed of X2-6070 is 1600Mbps, while that of Samsung's 128 layer flash memory is 1200Mbps, and the IO speeds of Western Digital and Toshiba are also 1200Mbps. There is no exact data on the IO speed of other companies, and it is estimated to be 1200Mbps.

Therefore, in terms of IO performance, X2-6070 flash memory of Changjiang Storage is also the first, ahead of other manufacturers. From the technical indicators, X2-6070 flash memory of Changjiang Storage is the first time that domestic flash memory has entered the first echelon, and it is of great significance in capacity, density and performance.

This is also the first time that China's flash memory specifications have surpassed those of Samsung and other memory manufacturers, which indicates that China has broken the pricing power of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the flash memory market.

Because Ziguang can be in the same echelon as other flash memory manufacturers in terms of flash memory specifications, this is because Ziguang has also developed 3D NAND flash memory technology with Xtacking structure, which will bring unprecedented I/O high performance, higher storage density and shorter product launch cycle for 3D NAND flash memory.

Xtacking can be used to independently process peripheral circuits responsible for data I/O and memory cell operations on the wafer. This processing method is conducive to the selection of appropriate advanced logic technology, so that NAND can obtain higher I/O interface speed and more operating functions. The memory cells will also be processed independently on another wafer. When two wafers are completed separately, the innovative Xtacking technology can bond them together through millions of metal vias (vertical interconnection access) in one processing step, and only increase the limited cost.

20 19 Changjiang storage upgraded Xtacking technology again and released Xtacking2.0, which will further improve the throughput of n and and improve the comprehensive performance of system-level storage.

Of course, although we have broken the pricing power of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the chip market, Ziguang still needs to increase its production capacity to achieve self-sufficiency. Ziguang has mass-produced 64-layer stacked 3D flash memory with a capacity of 256Gb. By the end of 2020, the production capacity will only be 60,000 chips per month. Compared with the global monthly flash memory chip production capacity of about 6.5438+0.3 million wafers, the domestic flash memory production capacity accounts for only 3% this year.

Samsung, Toshiba, Micron and other companies are still ahead in the production progress and capacity of 128 3D flash memory this year.

At present, Ziguang will completely catch up with the production capacity of other flash memory manufacturers in 20021year. I hope that domestic enterprises can support our own flash memory chips by then.

In addition, Ziguang is also tackling memory chips. In addition to Ziguang, Hefei Changxin is also tackling memory chips. In order to reduce the threat of US sanctions, Hefei Changxin redesigned the DRAM chip to minimize the use of American-made technology.

With the fists of Ziguang Group and Hefei Changxin, China now doesn't need to look at the West in the field of memory chips. In the field of semiconductors, China will develop slowly, thus building our own semiconductor ecology.