Samsung's Use of Molybdenum in 9th-Generation V-NAND and Future Plans

TapTechNews July 3rd news, according to the report of Korean media TheElec, Samsung has for the first time attempted to use Molybdenum (Mo) in the metal wiring (metalwiring) of its 9th-generation V-NAND.

TapTechNews note: The eight major processes in the semiconductor manufacturing process are: wafer fabrication, oxidation, lithography, etching, deposition, metal wiring, testing, and packaging.

Among them, the metal wiring process is mainly to connect billions of electronic components in different ways to form different semiconductors (CPU, GPU, etc.), which can be said to inject life into the semiconductor.

Insiders said that Samsung has introduced five Mo deposition machines from LamResearch company, and also plans to introduce 20 more equipment next year.

In addition to Samsung Electronics, companies such as SK Hynix, Micron and Kioxia are also considering using Molybdenum. Different from Tungsten hexafluoride (WF6) used in the existing NAND process, the molybdenum precursor (molybdenumprecursor) is solid and must sublime directly into a gaseous state at a high temperature of 600°C, and this process requires a separate deposition equipment.

Samsung reported in May this year that it has started the first batch of mass production of the 9th-generation V-NAND flash memory, and the bit density is increased by about 50% compared to the 8th-generation V-NAND.

The 9th-generation V-NAND is equipped with the next-generation NAND flash interface Toggle5.1, which can increase the data input/output speed by 33%, up to 3.2 gigabits per second (Gbps). In addition to this new interface, Samsung also plans to consolidate its position in the high-performance solid-state drive market by expanding support for PCIe5.0.