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Samsung-SSD

NAND storage prices weren't great in 2022. Drives were significantly more expensive throughout the year than in 2022, and while prices came downwardly somewhat in the afterward part of the year, they're all the same running hot compared with 2022-2016. China is planning to investigate the situation, with an centre on how Samsung could potentially be manipulating the market.

"Nosotros take noticed the price surge and will pay more attending to future issues that may be caused past 'cost fixing' in the sector," Xu Xinyu, an official with the Pricing Supervision Section of the National Development and Reform Committee, told China Daily.

The leap in NAND pricing over the past 12-18 months has supposedly been driven by the shift from 2D NAND to 3D NAND. Unlike 2D NAND (likewise known every bit planar NAND), 3D NAND is stacked on height of itself to create layers of memory. Initially, nosotros saw 32-48 layer stacks, just 64-layer 3D NAND has now launched with 96-layer demonstrated. In theory, this should bulldoze NAND prices down over the long term, equally information technology becomes more than price-constructive to clasp more and more storage into the same physical area. But converting over from planar NAND to 3D NAND has some costs associated with it, and supposedly those costs have driven up the toll of NAND every bit a whole.

3d-nand-flash

3D-NAND (general diagram)

There's been some speculation that we could see the offset of a price decline in coming weeks, as factories come fully online and need softens seasonally, but People's republic of china's NDRC may be flexing its muscle with an eye towards other potential factors. Samsung and various other tech companies have been caught manipulating markets before in an effort to increase their own prices. The US government fined Samsung $300M in 2005 for its efforts to fix international prices on DRAM. Samsung has profited handsomely from the shortage, with profits upwards sharply throughout 2022.

This doesn't mean Samsung is profiteering. As one of the get-go companies to beginning aggressively deploying 3D NAND, information technology'southward entirely possible the house is enjoying a first-mover advantage. Only this is the kind of conduct the Chinese NDRC volition be watching. China seems increasingly willing to flex its muscle in areas like antitrust constabulary; the state likewise fined Qualcomm $975 million for its ain alleged antitrust activeness.

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