Taiwan Economic News reports that DRAM vendors will be bringing 4x nm process technologies on line during 2010 and 2011 to keep manufacturing profits up. According to P L Pai, vice president of Nanya Technology, DRAM chip makers are presently climbing the learning curve with 40nm process technologies and he says that the lead time of 40nm immersion tools averages nine months. Consequently, he predicts that production volumes for 4x nm DRAMs will be available in 2011. Pai also said that Samsung has already migrated to a 46nm process and Hynix is likely to successfully shift to a 4x nm process in the third quarter. According to the article, Nanya began pilot DRAM production in June using a 42nm process with two 4x nm immersion tools and will add two more 4x nm machines sometime in the second half of this year.

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