Kioxia and Sandisk have unveiled their 10th-generation QLC 3D flash memory technology, achieving a bit density of more than 37 Gb/mm², representing up to a 60% increase over their 8th-generation flash memory and setting what the companies describe as an industry benchmark.
The new technology uses the companies’ CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) architecture, with CMOS logic and memory arrays fabricated separately before being bonded through wafer-to-wafer alignment. It also delivers improved read and write bandwidth and is the industry’s first QLC 3D flash memory technology to reach a 4.8 Gb/s interface.
The companies said the technology’s improved I/O power efficiency is designed to address the power and cooling requirements of AI and cloud infrastructure, where growing training, inference and hyperscale workloads are driving demand for higher-capacity storage.
“QLC technology enables the efficient storage of rapidly expanding data volumes, helping deliver greater performance and scalability for AI systems,” said Hideshi Miyajima, Chief Technology Officer, Kioxia.
“By redefining the performance and efficiency envelope of QLC NAND, our 10th-generation QLC 3D flash memory delivers simultaneous gains in density, bandwidth, and energy efficiency,” said Alper Ilkbahar, Chief Technology Officer, Sandisk.
The technology features a 332-layer architecture, Toggle DDR6.0 and Separate Command Address protocol, along with CBA architecture and Power-Isolated Low-Tapped Termination technology to improve density, performance, manufacturing efficiency and I/O power consumption.