Macronix will begin shipping 3D NAND in 2020

Macronix, a manufacturer of Taiwan-specific memory solutions, will begin mass production of 3D NAND memory in the second half of next year. The company will become Taiwan's first manufacturer of in-house designed 3D NAND flash memory.

The company's chairman Wu Ming said Macronix will manufacture 48-layer 3D NAND storage in the second half of 2020. Then, the company plans to start shipping 96-layer 3D NAND in 2021 and start shipping 192-layer 3D NAND in 2022. Currently, the company's most advanced technology for making NAND is its 19-nanometer planar technology, which has been in use since the 19th century.

Macronix did not disclose the system structure of its 3D NAND, but since the company usually produces memory for specialized equipment such as defibrillators, drones, video game cassettes and watches, they may aim to extend the life and improve reliability. Today, this is a very unique product, as most commodity flash memories focus on density first.

In turn, the first customer of this storage will be Nintendo. It was reported in 2018 that Nintendo's production of 64GB Switch game cards was postponed due to technical issues. To date, Nintendo has not delivered a 64GB card, so this may be the result of Nintendo's waiting for the 64GB card to finally be launched.

Overall, the chairman of Macronix is ​​optimistic about future demand for NAND and NOR flash memory.