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Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest computer memory chipmaker, said Monday that it has developed the world's first 32-gigabit NAND flash memory chip based on 40-nano technologies.

The development came after Samsung Electronics rolled out 16-gigabit NAND flash memory using 50-nano technologies last year, retaining its leading status in the expansion of its memory capacity for the past six years.

NAND flash memory refers to the chips mostly used in digital cameras and music players and fewer nanometers mean more semiconductors can be produced from each wafer.

Samsung Electronics first developed the 256-megabit NAND flash memory in 1999, and has expanded the capacity by two-fold every year since then, the company said.

The NAND memory chips unveiled this time can store up to 36,000 high-resolution photographs or 40 movie files.

The chipmaking giant announced that it has also developed the world's first 512-megabit phase change random access memory chips or P-RAMs and high-speed hybrid memory chips.

P-RAMs boast data-processing speed 30 times faster than existing memory chips and are more competitive in production costs than existing flash memory. Samsung Electronics said it start marketing the chips in 2008. Also, mass production of the hybrid chips will begin in November this year, the company added.

Samsung is the world's top NAND flash memory chip maker, but a recent price cut in memory in the global market has threatened to erode its profitability.

The operating profit of its semiconductor business in the second quarter dropped 12.1 percent from three months earlier to 980 billion won (US$1.02 billion).

In a press conference held in central Seoul to announce the new products and technologies, Hwang Chang-gyu, head of Samsung Electronics's chipmaking division, forecast that the NAND flash memory prices will stabilize in the quarters to come, though there will be a brief oversupply in memory products in the first quarter of next year.

Hwang expected the prices for D-RAMs, used in personal computers, will also remain strong until the year 2009.

"Our memory chip sales will reach an all-time high in the third quarter and maintain momentum until the end of this year," Hwang said.

Seoul, Sept. 11 (Yonhap News)