Inotera Memories, Nanya Technology and Rexchip Electronics are all scheduled to kick off volume production using 30nm-class processes sometime in the second half of 2011, closing the technology gap relative to industry leaders.
Rexchip Electronics has revealed plans to start producing mobile RAM products for Elpida Memory in the second half of 2011, using Elpida's 38nm node technology. Half of its DRAM products will be built using the more advanced node at the end of the year, according to the company.
Rexchip is expected to move the 38nm process to volume production as early as June, ahead of Nanya and Inotera, industry sources have observed. The company was also the first Taiwan company to convert all of its capacity to a 40nm-class node.
Nanya and Inotera, which use Micron Technology's process designs to produce DRAM, may not enter volume production of products using 3Xnm until the end of 2011, the sources indicated. 42nm is currently their major process technology.
Industry leader Samsung Electronics has already ramped chip production using 35m process technology, the sources said. The node is likely to account for 30% of its total output for DRAM at the end of the second quarter, the sources predicted.