Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., announced today that it has become the first to begin mass producing 16 gigabit (Gb) NAND flash, the highest capacity memory chip now available.

Samsung said it will fabricate the chips in 51 nanometers (nm), the finest process technology to be used in memory mass production to date.

Samsung’s 51nm NAND flash chips can be produced 60% more efficiently than those produced with 60nm process technology.

The new 16Gb chip which has a multi-level cell (MLC) structure can facilitate capacity expansion by offering 16 gigabytes (GBs) of memory in a single memory card. Furthermore, by applying the new process technology, Samsung has accelerated the chip’s read and write speeds by around 80% over current MLC data processing speeds. (30MB/s Read speed, 8MB/s Write speed).

“In rolling out the densest NAND flash in the world, we are throwing open the gates to a much wider playing field for flash-driven consumer electronics,” said Jim Elliott, director, flash marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. “To minimize production costs and improve performance, we have applied the finest process technology a ‘half generation’ ahead of the industry, which is introducing 55nm and higher.”

Expect to see the new 16Gb NAND Flash memory in your mobile phone or MP3 player late this year. This could be just in time for a new Apple iPhone with more memory for less money around Christmas.