Western Digital and Kioxia, the former Toshiba Memory, have presented the fifth generation of their 3D Nand memory under the name BiCS5. The nand memory consists of 112 layers; in the fourth generation that was 96 layers.
Western Digital and Kioxia co-developed BiCS5 memory, Kioxia produces it. In a press release, Western Digital reports that the company is already using a 512Gbit chip in the new nand memory in consumer products. This is TLC Nand memory. However, large-scale production is not expected until the second half of 2020.
The BiCS5 memory will be used as both tlc-nand and qlc-nand. In addition to the 512Gbit chip, there will also be variants with a capacity of 1Tbit and 1.33Tbit. According to the manufacturers, the memory density has increased by twenty percent over BiCS4 through the use of more layers and ‘advanced process technology’. The speed would have increased by 50 percent compared to the predecessor.
Other memory manufacturers preceded Western Digital and Kioxia. SK Hynix already started the production of 128-layer nand memory last year. Samsung released SSDs last year with the sixth generation of its v-nand memory that consists of ‘more than 100’ layers.