Smartphone chip expands to 128GB memory

Louise Davis

Samsung Electronics has begun mass producing the industry’s first 4-bit (QLC, quad-level cell) 4-terabyte (TB) SATA solid-state drive (SSD) for consumers.

“Samsung’s new 4-bit SATA SSD will herald a massive move to terabyte-SSDs,” said Jaesoo Han at Samsung Electronics. “As we expand our lineup across consumer segments 4-bit terabyte-SSD products will rapidly spread throughout the entire market.”

With its new 1Tb 4-bit V-NAND chip, Samsung will be able to efficiently produce a 128GB memory card for smartphones that will lead the charge toward higher capacities for high-performance memory storage.

Typically, as data stored within a memory cell increases from 3 bits to 4, the chip capacity per unit area would rise and the electrical charge (used to determine information from a sensor) would decrease by as much as 50%, making it considerably more difficult to maintain a device’s desired performance and speed.

However, Samsung’s 4-bit 4TB SSD maintains its performance levels at the same level as a 3-bit SSD by using a 3-bit SSD controller and TurboWrite technology, while increasing drive capacity through the use of 32 chips, all based on 64-layer fourth-generation 1Tb V-NAND.

The 4-bit QLC SSD enables a sequential read speed of 540MB/s and a sequential write speed of 520MB/s, and comes with a three-year warranty.

Samsung plans to introduce several 4-bit consumer SSDs later this year with 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities in the widely used 2.5-inch form factor.