During an investor webcast titled “New Era of NAND,” Western Digital unveiled the world’s highest capacity memory chip, the BiCS8 2Tb QCL.
It was created in collaboration with Kioxia (the two companies are responsible for producing about a third of the global bit output in the NAND industry, WD said) and uses eighth-generation BiCs technology (or BiCS8), announced in 2023.
Western Digital unveiled a slide showing that BiCS8 offers 50% improved memory density over the previous generation, as well as 12% better layer density, 30% better program bandwidth, 21% better read latency, and >80% transfer speed. The company also stated that the BiCS8 IO speed is 50% faster than competitors of the same generation.
Smaller than a fingertip
After discussing some details about the BiCS8 and Circuit Bonded Array (CBA) technology, Alper Ilkbahar SVP Technology and Strategy surprised investors by announcing: “I am very excited to preview the BiCS8 2Tb QLC mold with you. We designed this chip to meet the data center and AI storage needs. We are going to announce this product soon, but I want to share it with you today.
Investors then got the chance to see the new dice. “Normally we show you a waffle, but I felt that the view of a waffle does not reflect what we have achieved,” Ilkbahar said, before disappearing from view for a moment and returning with the small die on his fingertip, which you can see in the photo above. “It stores 2 trillion – 2 trillion! – bits, and this is what I think technology leadership looks like,” Ilkbahar said during his mic moment.
The new flash memory could potentially revolutionize the market for high-capacity solid-state drives, enabling much faster, larger, and more power-efficient SSDs. Although details about the exact architecture of the 2Tb IC remain unknown for now, Tom’s hardware explains: “A 256GB 3D QLC NAND device would allow manufacturers to build a 1TB SSD with just four memory ICs and a 2TB drive with eight devices, significantly reducing their costs. Creating a 16-chip package would enable an astonishing 4TB in a single chip package.”
We’ll find out more about the 2Tb QLC NAND when Western Digital announces it sooner.