Toshiba catching up with Samsung in 3-D NAND chips

SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Yonhap) -- Japan's Toshiba Corp. is rapidly catching up with Samsung Electronics Co. in the global market for advanced flash memory chips for mobile devices, or 3-D NAND chips, according to industry observers Thursday.
Toshiba announced earlier this week that it will build a fabrication facility in February next year to begin production of the 3-D NAND chips.
"Decisions on the new fab's overall capacity and equipment investment, the start of production, production capacity and production plan will reflect market trends," Toshiba said in a statement.

Toshiba also said it will continue cooperation with Western Digital for their joint venture on flash memory chips.
According to a market tracker DRAMeXchange, Samsung accounted for 36.3 percent of the global market for NAND flash memory chips, while Toshiba's market share stood at 20.1 percent.
Samsung started mass production of the 48-layer 3-D NAND chips in 2013 and is believed to begin mass production of next-generation 64-layer 3-D NAND chips at the end of this year.
Although Toshiba will expand its facility for the 3-D NAND chips, an industry observer said it may be difficult for Toshiba to mass-produce such chips.


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