Together Western Digital and Toshiba have developed the first 3D NAND chips with 64 cell layers. So far Samsung was the market leader in this field producing chips with 48 layers.

The new production technology is called BiSC3, which follows BiSC2. The latter featured up 48 layers, while - as mentioned - the new process allows for 64 layers. Both companies are communicating that BiSC3 is in pilot production. They're expecting that in fourth quarter this year the first chips will be shipped. As for now OEMs are already testing BiSC3 based NAND flash memory. When it comes to mass production it appears that we can expect it to ramp up in first quarter 2017.

In a first step the two companies are planning chips with 256 GBit desnity based on the 3 bit TLC technology. A result of increased storage density is always more headroom when it comes to pricing. When BiSC3 based NAND flash memory will be widely available prices will see another significant decline, which is always great for customers. Apart from that capacities can also be increased while maintaining todays price level.

Looking a little bit closer at Toshibas roadmap shows that the company is even thinking about QLC NAND flash memory, which would use 4 Bit in each memory cell. This would allow to increase the storage density even further and therefore allow for even higher capacity drives.

So far it looks like 2017 is going to be an interesting year regarding high capacity yet "affordable" SSDs. Maybe we will even see SSDs hitting HDD price levels. It's exciting to observer that Wester Digital now appears to be fully joining the SSD race together with Toshiba, which to me is a solid hint that HDDs will lose importance in the consumer market.



Source: Western Digital