According to Samsung Semiconductor, Samsung expects the capacity of a single SSD to reach 1 petabyte (quadrillion bytes) in the next decade.
Samsung said that NAND flash products based on 3D manufacturing process are continuously improving their data storage capabilities, and this evolution is taking place in three areas: physical scaling technology, logical scaling technology, and 32DIE stacked packaging.
The physical scaling technique includes three techniques: horizontal/vertical shrinkage (a method to reduce the size of each memory cell), vertical stacking (a method to add more WL stacks, thereby increasing the number of memory cells), battery in the periphery (a method to reduce the silicon area by placing the peripheral circuit under the memory cell), Used to improve performance and reduce costs in response to changes in application and system processing requirements.
Logical scaling techniques, such as QLC techniques -- involve finding ways to store more bits in a single cell so that SSDS can hold more data while remaining light and compact. QLC technology enables each device to store 4 bits per unit, which increases storage density by 33% compared to TLC.
packaging technology is key to developing high-capacity products, and Samsung has been able to mass-produce 32 die-stack Packaging.
Through these three technologies, Samsung has continued to explore high capacity SSDS, releasing 16TB SSD in 2016, 32TB SSD in 2017, 64TB SSD in late 2019, and 128TB prototype SSD based on QLC in 2021.
Samsung participated in the joint development of the smart SSD in 2018 and began mass production in 2022. In 2023, Samsung and its partners are preparing the second generation of smart SSD.
Samsung also expects 181zBs of connected devices by 2025, an explosion of data growth that will require more and bigger data centers.