Micron cuts costs as demand for 3D NAND and DRAM drops:
Micron this week announced drastic cost-cutting measures, which includes a 10% workforce reduction as well as further lowering of capital expenditures. As a result, the company will slowdown the ramp of new DRAM nodes, which will delay its introduction of 1γ (1-gamma) production nodes, that use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to 2025. Meanwhile, the company has begun sampling of 24Gb DDR5 memory devices for enterprise applications.
Micron is the only large DRAM maker that does not use EUV lithography with its latest fabrication processes. The memory producer plans to use EUV for several layers in its 1γ manufacturing technology, which was set to be introduced sometime in 2024. Because Micron has to reduce spending on new equipment in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 as well as reduce DRAM bit shipments in the coming quarters, it will have to slowdown ramp up of DRAMs on its 1β and 1γ fabrication technologies.
[...] Since the company expects meagre demand growth for both types of memory it produces — 10% in DRAM and around 20% in NAND — it needs to reduce its operating expenses too. As a result, it plans to reduce headcount by 10% throughout 2023 'through a combination of voluntary attrition and personnel reductions.'
Related: Micron's New 3D NAND Flash Could Usher in a Rapid New Generation of SSDs
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Memory and data storage producer Micron have begun production and shipment of the world's first 232-layer NAND in Singapore, which marks the first time a NAND manufacturer has surpassed 200 layers. This opens the door for the world's first 200TB SSDs. For comparison, even the flashiest personal computers usually stop at 2TB of storage, and the current largest SSD in the world is Nimbus Data's 100TB ExaDrive.
Prior to the innovation, the company's NAND topped out at 176-layers. The new NAND is also 50% faster than Micron's 176-layer offering, at a top speed of 2.4 gigabytes per second, while featuring 100% higher write bandwidth and 75% higher read bandwidth. The company also says that the 232-layer NAND has 1 terabyte per die, the highest areal density in the industry, and has heightened capacity and energy efficiency over previous Micron NANDs.
[...] Micron says that the new NAND is in production at the company's Singapore factory, and will ship to customers in "component form." But in case you think this means you're going to upgrade your gaming PC's capacity by about 100 fold, think again. That 100TB SSD we mentioned earlier currently costs $40,000, and a 200TB one is going to be more expensive.
Samsung to lower memory prices and expand production capacity to regain market share
Samsung is preparing to weather the upcoming 2023 recessionary period in its own typical way by expanding memory production capacity and slashing DRAM chip prices significantly. This way it will be able to preserve and increase its pole position in terms of memory market share and, contrary to its competitors like Micron or SK Hynix, Samsung will be investing in new manufacturing lines, rather than slashing its capital expenditure program and laying off workers.
Samsung did this the last time there was a recession in the IT industry like the one the market is going through now, and it is now projected to add a new line for the novel 12nm DRAM chips which it unveiled not long ago that will increase its total memory manufacturing capacity by more than 10%.
Related:
Samsung DDR5-7200 Memory Chips: Small Dies, Extreme Performance
Micron Delays EUV RAM to 2025, Lays Off 10% of Workforce
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday December 27, @02:15PM (1 child)
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=22/12/23/0754218 [soylentnews.org]
Cutting production keeps those prices higher, until the next class action lawsuit.
24 Gb, while interesting, is a half-measure because they can't get to 32 Gb so easily.
If you are wondering what 1β and 1γ are, they are cutesy stand-ins for "we're not going to tell you what process node this is made on".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday December 27, @05:11PM
Micron's pretty lady has some funny explanation at https://www.micron.com/about/blog/2021/january/inside-1a-the-worlds-most-advanced-dram-process-technology [micron.com]
So it's rather complicated hybrid pattern making somewhere above 10nm.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design