In a strategic move to solidify its position in the NAND flash memory market and maintain leadership in the solid-state drive (SSD) industry, Samsung Electronics Co. unveiled its latest consumer SSD product, the ‘990 EVO’. The cutting-edge SSD boasts enhanced performance, versatility, and technological prowess compared to its predecessor, the 970 EVO Plus, and is a significant breakthrough for Samsung in a NAND market that has been gradually recovering from the challenges that it faced in 2023.

According to sources on Wednesday, Samsung Electronics is expanding its product lineup to revitalize the NAND market and retain its dominance in the SSD sector. Market tracker Omdia indicates that the NAND market, which stood at $36.99 billion in 2023, is projected to grow to $87 billion by 2027.

The anticipated recovery in NAND prices in 2024, coupled with production cuts by major semiconductor companies, is expected to contribute to a rebound in the overall NAND market. TrendForce suggests that if production control is maintained, NAND prices could surge by 18-23 percent in the first quarter of the year alone.

This analysis finds agreement in the Korean market as well. “There is a high probability that conservative production cuts will continue until the fourth quarter. As shipments increase, memory companies are likely to reduce low-price NAND sales and maintain a profit-oriented strategy,” KB Securities analyst Kim Dong-won said.

With the launch of the 990 EVO, Samsung Electronics expresses confidence in maintaining its position as the ‘World’s top SSD’ provider. The 990 EVO offers sequential read speeds up to 5,000 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and write speeds up to 4,200 MB/s, or a 43 percent and 30 percent improvement respectively, over its predecessor.

This was achieved thanks to the incorporation of Samsung’s self-developed 5-nanometer controller, which contributed to a 70 percent improvement in power efficiency.

The new product also uses Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology to directly link to the host processor’s DRAM, allowing the SSD to achieve optimized performance even with a DRAM-less design.

Supporting both PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 interfaces, the 990 EVO is future-proof, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of systems. Omdia predicts it will record a significant growth of 17 percent annually in the PCIe-based SSD market from 2023 to 2027 to capture 99 percent of the SSD market.

By Seong Seung-hoon and Minu Kim

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