Direct:
DigiTimes is reporting that the major NAND makers are now collectively walking away from mature-process 2D NAND, and prices on what's left are spiking faster than the 3D NAND market. There's no obvious off-ramp because the replacement capacity simply doesn't exist.
The catalyst is Samsung. They announced MLC end-of-life in March 2025, with final shipments scheduled for June 2026, and per The Elec, the last 2D NAND line at Hwaseong Line 12 – roughly 80,000 to 100,000 wafers per month – may have already converted to 1C DRAM. That officially closes Samsung's 2D NAND chapter. Kioxia, SK hynix, and Micron are all still producing MLC for now, but only enough to honor existing commitments, with Kioxia's tail running longer than the others. None of them are interested in taking new volume. TrendForce projects global MLC NAND capacity drops 41.7% year-over-year in 2026.
The price action is already steep. DigiTimes' parallel reporting on the eMMC shortage says contract MLC prices doubled in Q1 2026 and could double again – that specific claim is paywalled and worth treating as DigiTimes-sourced rather than independently confirmed. TrendForce's public coverage backs the direction and the 41.7% capacity drop, but not the doubling figures.
Macronix is the obvious beneficiary, and the numbers show why. Q1 2026 NAND revenue jumped 382% YoY with gross margin hitting 40.8%, and Chairman Miin Wu has the company on monthly pricing instead of quarterly contracts. Reported eMMC growth runs into the four-digit-percent range YoY, though that figure traces back to secondary commentary on the Taiwanese press; the directional story is solid even if the exact multiple isn't. The NT$22 billion capex restart is real, but equipment lead times push most of the new capacity into 1H 2027.
For consumer SSD readers, this is mostly someone else's problem. 2D NAND and low-density MLC live in industrial controllers, automotive ECUs, networking gear, medical devices, and the small eMMC parts inside cheap embedded systems – not in your TLC or QLC client SSD. The indirect pressure is the part to watch: the same fabs reallocating cleanroom space toward DRAM and high-layer 3D NAND are part of the broader memory squeeze pushing consumer SSD prices up. The 2D NAND story is the leading edge of that, not a separate event.
Sources
- DigiTimes, “2D NAND shortage spirals after Samsung, Micron, and rivals exit market” (May 2026, paywalled stub)
- DigiTimes, “eMMC shortage sends NAND prices soaring” (Mar 2026, paywalled – source for the doubling claim)
- TrendForce press release on 41.7% MLC capacity decline (Jan 2026)
- TrendForce, “Samsung Reportedly Ends Last 2D NAND Line as Early as March,” citing The Elec (Feb 2026)
- TrendForce on Macronix Q1 2026 results, citing Economic Daily News, Liberty Times, Commercial Times, TechNews (Apr 2026)
- Taipei Times, “Macronix eyes more price hikes in coming quarters” (Apr 2026)
- HotHardware, Network World on broader 2026 memory shortage context
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