Micron’s 32-layer 3D NAND for production this year

The Tool makers of advanced semiconductor processing equipment look form inflection points for new advanced processing technology such as ALD. "The inflection points include the move towards multi-patterning. That’s an enormous driver of growth,” “It’s also the move to finFET from planar. It’s planar to 3D NAND, as well as the move to 3D packaging.” - Doug Bettinger, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Lam Research

Doug must be happy to hear that besides Samsung and Toshiba, Micron will move into pilot production of a 32-layer 3D NAND device in the second half of this year according to Electronics Weekly  The entry device will be a 32-layer device (pictured below) and it is believed that 3D NAND does not become cost-competitive with the most advanced planar NAND until it reaches 48 layers and Micron intends to introduce a 2nd generation 3D NAND which is, presumably, a 48-layer device, end of next year.

Micron 3DNAND 32 layer stack device