As the global memory chip industry mobilizes all its production capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and advanced 3D NAND flash, the supply base for legacy products such as 2D NAND flash is collapsing. Samsung Electronics and Kioxia are shutting down low-margin legacy process lines one after another, and even Micron has declared an exit from its consumer business, once a key outlet for general-purpose products, worsening the supply-demand imbalance in markets where long-term reliability is essential, such as automotive electronics and industrial equipment.
According to the chip industry on the 12th, Samsung Electronics began gradually halting 2D NAND production at Line 12 of its Hwaseong campus in Mar. and has started converting the facility into an "End Fab" for advanced 1c DRAM production. With the shutdown of Samsung's last 2D NAND base, which had wafer capacity of 80,000 to 100,000 per month, the company's 2D NAND era—launched in 2002 with the world's first mass production of 1Gb—has come to an end after 24 years.
In particular, Samsung Electronics' latest move coincides with the discontinuation of MLC (Multi-Level Cell) NAND products that once led the market. Samsung has already notified customers of MLC NAND end-of-life (EOL) and is expected to fully stop supply after final shipments in June this year. MLC stores 2 bits of data per cell; while its capacity is smaller than 3-bit (TLC) or 4-bit (QLC) methods, it offers superior data retention and durability. For that reason, it has served as a "safety valve" in markets such as medical devices and industrial robots that must run for more than 10 years without malfunction, but it is being pushed out for having low profitability.
Kioxia has also formalized its move away from legacy. In Mar., Kioxia informed customers of a phased exit plan for 2D NAND and 3rd-generation BiCS Flash products. It will take final orders through the end of Sept. this year, complete final shipments by Dec. 2028, and fully exit the market starting in 2029. The company is also halting production of TSOP products, an older packaging family, which is expected to further tighten supply for low-capacity NAND.
Micron is maintaining MLC NAND output only at levels that meet existing customer demand while declaring the end of its consumer brand "Crucial," pouring fuel on the supply crunch. This goes beyond a simple brand cleanup and represents a strategic decision to fully shift legacy process wafer output to advanced memory for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. As a result, the low-capacity, general-purpose NAND volumes supplied to the market are disappearing rapidly, deepening the supply cliff.
The problem is that the pace of major players' exits is outstripping the market's technological transition. Market research firm TrendForce expects global MLC NAND production capacity this year to plunge 41.7% from a year earlier. In particular, Samsung Electronics and Micron are selling off legacy equipment while refusing to license out core MLC manufacturing technology, making it even harder for new players to enter the market. Prices of some SLC and MLC products have risen by double digits in a month, and spot prices for MLC 64Gb have surged to the $20–$28 range—up as much as more than 300% from late last year (about $6)—as "panic buying" peaks.
An industry official said, "The resource shift toward high-value AI memory is undermining the legacy memory market that underpins the real economy," adding, "The cost burden and supply chain risks of domestic home appliance and automobile manufacturers will increase through next year."