Western Digital Develops 64-Layer 3D NAND

One of the biggest challenge facing the semiconductor industry is the physical limitations of silicon. As we’ve seen with Intel’s CPUs, silicon products are simply getting harder to shrink as the lithography continues to decrease. NAND is not immune to the same problems, with decreased endurance to boot at lower nodes. One of the ways to address this problem is with 3D NAND, and Western Digital has announced their latest breakthrough with partner Toshiba.

As part of their SanDisk purchase, WD inherited a strong R&D division along with a partnership with Toshiba. This has now reaped its first major windfall in the new 64 layer NAND. Named BiCS3, the new 3D NAND stacks the most layers, likely making it the most cost-effective once production ramps up. This will allow for cheaper 3D NAND, meaning cheaper SSDs. Unfortunately, BiCS3 is only TLC for now which means it won’t be a speed demon NAND like Samsung’s 3D MLC NAND.

According to Western Digital, pilot production has now started with commercial production set to occur in early 2017 if all goes well. This likely means we’ll see commercial SSDs out with the new NAND starting in Q2/Q3 2017. As more 3D NAND continues to roll out, we may finally see TLC be able to provide a truly viable performance and endurance alternative to MLC.