Kioxia and WD Introduce World's Fastest 3D NAND Memory

Kioxia and WD Introduce World's Fastest 3D NAND Memory

Kioxia and Western Digital have unveiled their 8th Gen BiCS 3D NAND memory with 218 active layers. Next-generation NAND chips will allow manufacturers to build high-performance storage devices using fewer 3D NAND chips.


The jointly developed TLC NAND chips have a capacity of 1 Tb (128 GB), a quad-plane architecture to maximize internal parallelism and performance, and an interface speed of 3200 MT/s (sequential read/write speed of 400 MB/s). Kioxia and Western Digital thus became the first 3D NAND manufacturers to produce integrated circuits with an input-output speed of 3200 MT/s. So how did they achieve this? The 8th Gen BiCS 3D NAND memory adopts an innovative architecture called CBA (CMOS Bonded to Array), which is similar to YMTC's well-known Xtacking technology.


NAND manufacturers claim their latest 3D NAND solutions have the industry's highest bit density, in addition to the industry's fastest I/O speed. Meanwhile, it has been stated that the introduced 8th Generation BiCS 3D TLC NAND can operate in both 3D TLC and 3D QLC modes. This means that storage units can be used in both high-performance/high-capacity premium SSDs and standard desktop SSDs.


Chips with an innovative design were introduced, but we do not expect the first products to arrive immediately. SSDs powered by 8th Gen BiCS 3D NAND are expected to hit the market in an estimated 2024.