Lam Research CEO: AI Demand Drives SLC Flash, SSD Prices May Keep Rising
Lam Research CEO Tim Archer stated that rising demand for SLC flash in AI data centers will squeeze NAND capacity: every 1% increase in SLC production consumes an additional 2% of flash capacity, so SSD prices will have to keep rising. SLC's write performance and P/E endurance are far higher than those of TLC and QLC, making it suitable for large-model KV caching; Samsung, Kioxia, and SK Hynix already offer SLC-based ultra-high-performance SSDs, and SLC can also be used in HBF drives.
Body · AI translation
On October 27, news emerged that compared with the 5-10x price increase for memory, the rise in NAND flash over the past year has been around 3-5x, which is not as exaggerated, and it will peak as early as the end of this year. The bad news is that there is now another variable, SLC flash, affecting the landscape.
Tim Archer, CEO of semiconductor equipment giant Lam Research, recently put forward a view that the growing increase in SLC flash could affect the supply and demand landscape of flash memory.
What does this mean? SLC, MLC, TLC, and QLC are several types of NAND. SLC has the best performance and the highest reliability, but the lowest capacity. To put it simply, the same MLC capacity can produce only 0.5 of SLC.
NAND production is now mainly TLC and QLC. If production is switched to SLC flash, then capacity would be only 1/3 or 1/4 of the original, and capacity throughput would plummet by 60-70%.
In reality, of course, such a large conversion ratio is impossible. According to Lam, every 1% increase in SLC production means consuming 2% of additional flash capacity.
Due to the characteristics of SLC flash, it has now been almost eliminated from the mainstream market, but in the AI era demand for SLC flash has risen again. On the one hand, the write performance of SLC flash far exceeds that of TLC and QLC, and its P/E lifespan is also far higher than other flash types. Early SLC had a P/E lifespan of 10,000 to 100,000 cycles, with extremely strong data retention.
Because of this, SLC flash is very suitable as cache in AI data centers. Everyone should understand how demanding large models are for KV cache, so companies such as Samsung, Kioxia, and SK Hynix all have ultra-high-performance SSD products based on SLC flash.
In addition, SLC flash can also be used in HBF drives under emerging standards, that is, a low-cost alternative to HBM memory. To catch up with HBM in performance, SLC flash is the only option, and it is still cheaper than DRAM memory.
In short, SLC flash has hope of a comeback in the AI era, but its characteristics also mean that if it is produced on a large scale, it will squeeze out the capacity of other NAND flash, which is equivalent to reducing flash production. The supply and demand relationship will change again, and the price of SSD drives will have to continue rising.