Research on Patent of Intellectual Properties of 3D NAND Flash

• Main Authors: Wu, Kuo-wei, 吳國緯
• Other Authors: KOO,Horng Show
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/k4bb5h

碩士 === 明新科技大學 === 管理研究所碩士在職專班 === 106 === As the functions of the digital consumer products has been improving every day, storage media has taken an indispensable part when it comes to designing of many consumer digital products. Many of them would be inoperable if it lacks of memory IC. Benefits from the consistent growth of the NAND Flash memory capacity on the smart phone, and actively import of the solid state drive (SSD) on PC, server and data center, the demand for the key component NAND Flash memory has been growing beyond imagination. Manufacturers spends lots of their capitals not only to expand factories and acquire related business but develop products that have higher capacity, even faster read-write speed and lower cost. With the process technology of the NAND Flash memory has come to under-10nm level, the process also has come from 32, 64 layers to 72 even 96 layers, the architecture stepped in to TCL and creative 3D NAND structure to make the cost even lower but more application. Therefore, bottlenecks and challenges will lie ahead when designing and manufacturing 3D NAND Flash memory. With great industrial development, it also comes with tremendous competition. Manufacturers should bear in mind that developing key technology and avoid patent conflict is important but avoiding patent mine field is even more important. In view of this, this thesis paper uses patent analysis, through M-Trends patent analysis platform to further analyze 3D NAND Flash memory industry patent trend. The result shows that during the period from 1977 to 2018, there were 2,769 patent right applications, the number significantly grows in 2005, but it’s most blooming from 2009 to 2015. However, the number of patent rights applications dropped drastically in 2017, whether it’s due to technological bottleneck or developments in other areas, is still in debate and needs researchers to further follow up. In addition to search results, we can see Taiwan has made it to the Top 5 patent development countries, but the patents are concentrated on specific manufacturers, vendors and inventor individuals after further cross-check among patent right holders, inventors and companies, which may results in the lower R&D investment energy compare to other countries. The above can be included in future directions on further studies. Keywords：3D NAND flash memory、Non-Volatile memory、Patent analysis.