KIOXIA begins sampling 10th-generation BiCS FLASH technology, more efficient and with an impressive 332 layers

KIOXIA is a global leader in cutting-edge storage, and this week the company confirmed it's now sampling devices featuring its 10th-generation BiCS FLASH 3D technology. KIOXIA notes that these samples, which are shipping to select customers, are for "functional check purposes," with mass production to follow at its Kitakami Plant Fab2 facility in Iwate Prefecture, Japan.

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Storage and SSDs with 10th-generation BiCS FLASH 3D technology, which will feature 1Tb (terabit) Triple-Level-Cell (TLC) memory, are built for enterprise and data center environments, specifically for AI workloads, where there's growing demand for higher performance, higher capacity, and more efficient storage.

With CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) and On-Pitch Select Gate Drain (OPS) technologies, key features of the current 8th-generation BiCS FLASH technology, this new 10th-generation will reportedly deliver a NAND interface speed of 4.8 Gb/s, an improvement of around 33%.

In addition to an impressive 59% increase in bit density, the number of stacked layers is increasing to 332. And on top of that, read and write power efficiency improves by up to 30%, reducing power draw in complex data center environments.

Now, if you're wondering how we've gone from 8th-gen BiCS FLASH 3D to 10th-gen, KIOXIA has actually been developing both 9th- and 10th-gen simultaneously. 9th-generation solutions will be all about low-cost and affordable solutions that deliver impressive performance, with the 10th-generation leveraging advanced layer stacking to achieve "massive capacity" alongside competitive performance in the data center and AI space.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Question #1

How will the 4.8 Gb/s NAND interface speed of 10th-gen BiCS FLASH affect real-world throughput compared with 8th-gen parts?

The article states the 10th-generation BiCS FLASH increases the NAND interface speed to 4.8 Gb/s, an improvement of around 33% versus 8th-generation parts. In real-world throughput this implies roughly one-third higher raw NAND interface bandwidth, which should translate to higher peak data transfer rates for devices using the 10th-gen chips, though the article does not provide specific real-world throughput numbers or end-to-end performance figures.

Question #2

How does the 332-layer stacking of 10th-gen BiCS FLASH impact endurance (TBW) compared with 9th-gen 120-layer and prior parts?

The article does not provide specific endurance (TBW) numbers for the 10th-generation 332-layer BiCS FLASH or compare TBW directly with the 9th-generation 120-layer and prior parts. It only states the 10th-gen increases bit density by 59% and improves read/write power efficiency by up to 30% compared with earlier designs. (Related article: KIOXIA samples next-gen 512Gb TLC BiCS FLASH storage solutions)

Question #3

When does KIOXIA plan to begin mass production at its Kitakami Plant Fab2 and what are expected initial production volumes?

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In comparison, KIOXIA began sampling its 9th-generation BiCS FLASH 3D technology around about this time last year, with 512Gb Triple-Level Cell (TLC) memory and 120-layer stacking.