Western Digital starts test production of 64-layer 512Gbit 3D nandflash

Western Digital has started pilot production of 64-layer 512Gbit 3D Nand memory. Mass production of the memory chips should start in the second half of the year. It concerns BiCS3 memory with 3 bits per cell, which Western Digital is developing with Toshiba.

Western Digital manufactures the memory at its Yokkaichi factory in Japan. The arrival of the 512Gbit 64-layer 3d nand follows that of 256Gbit in July last year, while Western Digital and Toshiba started producing 48-layer 3d nand in 2015. Western Digital has announced the start of pilot production at the Solid State Circuits Conference, which kicked off Monday.

When mass production starts in the second half of 2017, it will allow SSDs with greater capacities. Western Digital and Toshiba are lagging behind Samsung in their production, which announced in August last year that they could make its 3d V-Nand memory with 64 layers and a capacity of 512 Gbit. This allows the Korean manufacturer to theoretically manufacture 2.5″ SSDs with 8TB storage and M2 SSDs with a storage capacity of up to 2TB.

Micron plans to begin production of 64-layer 3D Nand by the end of this year. The company is currently testing production of 64-layer 256Gb Nand chips, with a die size of 59mm2. With the limited size, the company achieves a data density of 4.3Gb per mm2, which is the amount per wafer that would be a quarter higher than with competitors’ 64-layer 3D nand, the claim is.