Micron will release hbm2 chips and 128-layer nand in 2020
Memory manufacturer Micron will produce its first hbm2 memory chips later this year. The company made the announcement in a conference call with investors. In addition, the company is working on 128-layer nand memory with a replacement gate technology.
Micron achieved a turnover of 4.3 billion euros in the past quarter with a net profit of 363 million euros. This is despite the measures taken by the manufacturer to protect its 37,000 employees against the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. A quarter earlier, Micron had a turnover of 4.57 billion euros.
Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron, reports that the company is “on track” to introduce its first hbm2 chips this year. The memory manufacturer has not yet announced specifications of the hbm2 chips. For example, it is still unknown which process will be used and which memory capacities Micron will offer. Developing high-bandwidth memory took Micron about two years, writes AnandTech.
Image via AMD
Micron is one of the three prominent memory manufacturers. The other two manufacturers, SK Hynix and Samsung, have been offering hbm memory for a long time. Micron already produced its own memory type in the form of hybrid memory cube. That is a dram type that was developed as an alternative to hbm. However, in 2018 the company stopped developing hmc. Instead, Micron has focused on developing gddr6 memory and hbm chips.
Furthermore, Micron has started producing lpddr5 memory for use in smartphones, and is continuing to sample ddr5 modules on a 1Z node. The memory manufacturer started this earlier this year. Micron is also working on 128-layer nand memory, reports German tech site ComputerBase. For this, the company uses a replacement gate technique instead of floating gate transistors. Production will begin this quarter, but the nand flash is not expected to hit the market until the second fiscal quarter. This period takes place from July to August. Micron is also independently continuing its development of 3D XPoint memory. Previously, the company did this together with Intel, but this cooperation ended after 2019.