À̹ÌÁö È®´ë 4TB QLC SATA SSD. [Photo provided by Samsung Electronics Co.]
Samsung Electronics Co. has started mass producing the industry¡¯s first 4-bit Quad Level Cell (QLC) 4-terabyte (TB) SATA solid-state drive (SSD) for consumers, the company announced Tuesday.
The 4-bit SSD has a 33 percent higher memory capacity compared to its 3-bit peer, as data stored within a memory cell increases from three bits to four and the chip capacity per unit area would rise, the company explained. The industry¡¯s first 4-bit SSD requires sophisticated technology to maintain performance and speed because the electrical charge used to determine information from a sensor decreases by 40 percent, according to the company.
The world¡¯s biggest chipmaker used 32 chips based on 64-layer fourth-generation 1Tb V-NAND to increase the capacity to industry¡¯s largest 4TB, and employed a 3-bit SSD controller and TurboWrite technology to achieve a sequential read speed of 540 megabytes (MB) per second and write speed of 520 MB/s, according the company¡¯s statement.
The company has been dominating the PC SSD market since it introduced 32-gigabyte (GB) 1-bit SSD for PCs for the first time in the world in 2006. It released 2-bit products in 2010 and 3-bit products in 2012. It plans to introduce three types of 2.5-inch 4-bit SSDs for consumers this year with 1TB, 2TB and 4TB storage capacity.
The company also plans to offer M.2 NVMe SSDs for companies this year and begin the mass production of 4-bit fifth-generation V-NAND, it said in the press release. ¡°This will considerably expand its SSD lineup to meet the growing demand for faster, more reliable performance across a wide span of applications, such as next generation data centers, enterprise servers, and enterprise storage,¡± the company said.
SSD demand has surged beyond enterprise level as the alternative to hard disc drive. Samsung Electronics remains as the dominant player by accounting for 35 percent in global shipments as of the end of 2017.
By Hwang Hyung-gyu and Choi Mira
[¨Ï Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]