Western Digital Begins Production of World's Tallest 3D NAND “Skyscraper”

Megalith

Megalith

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Western Digital is gearing up the release of the first-ever 512-gigabit, 64-layer 3D NAND chip. Working in partnership with Toshiba, WD has managed to double the density of the chips they originally announced this past summer. Competitor Micron is also hard at work on their own 64-layer 3D NAND chips, but so far, they are only half as impressive at 256Gb. It is hard to say when we will start seeing these in devices, but mass production is definitely happening this year.

Western Digital…has kicked off production of the industry's densest 3D NAND flash chips, which stack 64 layers atop another and enable three bits of data to be stored in each cell. The 3D NAND flash chips are based on a vertical stacking or 3D technology that Western Digital and partner Toshiba call BiCS (Bit Cost Scaling). WD has launched its pilot production of its first 512 gigabit (Gb) 3D NAND chip based on the 64-layer NAND flash technology. In the same way a skyscraper allows for greater density in a smaller footprint, stacking NAND flash cells -- versus planar or 2D memory -enables manufacturers to increase density, which enables lower cost per gigabyte of capacity. The technology also increases data reliability and improves the speed of solid-state memory.
 
Get back to me when the costs get down to less then $100 per TB.
 
"in partnership with Toshiba"

Yes, Toshiba does all the work, WD issues press releases. Just like its HGST's brilliant engineers doing all the actual engineering on ever increasing density magnetic disks, while the fratboy marketing majors at WD sit around an oval table like Trump's sons figuring out what color stickers to give them.
 
WD's is bigger, it must be better!

Micron is also manufacturing 512Gb 64 layer products, but the smallest 256Gb product on the market makes it more impressive in my book.

Am I allows to quote Anandtech here?

With the second generation 3D NAND, Micron is shifting their strategy slightly by offering at least two different die sizes. We've previously heard about the 512Gb 64-layer 3D TLC part, but Micron will also be making a smaller 256Gb 3D TLC part. This die is planned to be the smallest 256Gb NAND flash die available from any vendor, at 59 mm^2 or 4.3Gb/mm^2. The smaller die is intended for the mobile market where the 512Gb part will be physically too large. Micron's market share for NAND in the mobile market has been quite low, in part because they tend toward making large, high-capacity chips. The new smaller part will give them a chance to go after a much larger share of the rapidly expanding mobile storage market.
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Smaller dies also means faster low capacity drives as more chips are used in parallel at lower capacities.
 
DPI said:
"in partnership with Toshiba"

Yes, Toshiba does all the work, WD issues press releases. Just like its HGST's brilliant engineers doing all the actual engineering on ever increasing density magnetic disks, while the fratboy marketing majors at WD sit around an oval table like Trump's sons figuring out what color stickers to give them.
Click to expand...

Bravo sir. Those rails didn't stand a chance to the juggernaut you just plowed through.

My question to you though. If a NAND skyscraper caught on fire, would it collapse in on it's self at freefall speed?
 
mashie said:
So what size SSD's will this result in?
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2.5"....lol 3 to 4 terabyte should be possible. Problem is when they stack them like this, overheating and throttling becomes a serious issue.
 
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