According to ZDNet Korea's reports, despite the booming development of artificial intelligence (AI) industries, the demand for high-capacity storage is rising. However, Samsung Electronics has encountered significant technical bottlenecks in the process of promoting its 9th generation (V9) QLC NAND Flash commercialization, which has delayed the project originally scheduled to start its first mass production in the second half of 2024 due to performance issues. Samsung is currently working hard to improve the design and process side to meet the growing market demand and strengthen its position in the high value-added memory market.
report pointed out that Samsung Electronics has pushed the full commercialization process of V9 QLC NAND until at least the first half of 2026. This delay will put pressure on Samsung's competitive NAND market in the high-capacity NAND market, especially in the AI industry's demands on data processing capabilities.
In fact, Samsung V9 NAND uses a 280-layer stacking design. In April 2024, the company has successfully produced the first batch of V9 NAND products adopted by TLC structure, achieving a capacity of 1TB in the future. In order to further improve storage density, Samsung announced in September 2024 that it will produce V9 QLC NAND products in mass. Compared to TLC, QLC NAND has significant advantages in realizing higher capacity storage devices, and QLC has thus become a key technology that meets the needs of modern data centers and AI applications for large data.
However, many insiders familiar with the situation revealed that Samsung Electronics encountered difficulties in the commercialization of V9 QLC NAND. In the early stages, the product showed a decline in performance, and the root cause of the problem lies in the design layer. Therefore, to solve these performance bottles, Samsung Electronics is currently actively improving the design and process side of the V9 QLC NAND. The industry predicts that these improvements are expected to be completed as early as the first half of 2026.
At the same time, in order to meet the needs of future mass production, Samsung is also planning to expand the production capabilities of V9 NAND. The company is discussing the conversion investment of V9 NAND in the first half of 2026 in Pingzeyuan District and crystal plants in Xi'an, China. Although the specific investment scale has not been determined, since Pingze and Xi'an factories have been introduced into the V9 NAND production line at a small scale, it is expected that the next overall production capacity will be further improved.
report pointed out that V9 QLC NAND has a strong role in Samsung's high value-added memory business. Because the current NAND market is undergoing structural changes due to the development of AI industry, the demand for high-capacity products is growing explosively. However, in the QLC NAND market, Samsung Electronics' main products are still in the V7 generation, while its next generation V8 NAND has not launched QLC products. This has led to the fact that even though Samsung maintains the first market share in the overall NAND market, it is relatively inferior in the QLC NAND market.
According to survey data from the municipal regulatory agency TrendForce and foreign exchange Morgan Stanley, it is expected that Samsung Electronics will account for only about 9% of the global QLC NAND shipments in 2026. In comparison, SK Hynix's subsidiary Solidigm is expected to account for 36%, Kioxia and SanDisk are expected to account for 29%, and Micron's market share is expected to reach 17%. These data highlight Samsung's competitive pressure in the QLC NAND field.
The report quoted relevant people from the Korean semiconductor industry and pointed out that the importance of QLC NAND is becoming increasingly prominent under the promotion of investment in large global technology companies and the existing demand for mature NAND replacement. He further emphasized that if Samsung Electronics wants to benefit from it, it must ensure the stable and expanded production of the most cutting-edge products. This also means that Samsung Electronics must overcome the technical challenges of V9 QLC NAND in order to effectively seize the market opportunities brought by the AI era and re-establish its leading position in the high-capacity NAND market. Therefore, the company's improvement results in the next few months will become the focus of attention in the industry.