Western data plans to start mass production of 162 layer bics6 3D NAND, which may be used for PCIe 5 standard SSD before the end of this year. The company is also developing NAND and PLC with more than 200 layers for data center storage, as well as the method of bonding multiple 3D NAND wafers together to increase the number of layers.
Western Digital, together with its partner kioxia, just showed us their roadmap for NAND development in the next few years. The company plans to launch its sixth generation BICS soon, which will have 162 layers of TLC and QLC structures.
Considering that competitors such as micron have 176 layers of NAND for some time, this may not sound so impressive, but Western Digital claims that they will reduce the size of the memory unit by using a new material, so as to make the chip smaller. This will enable them to make cheaper storage devices with equally good performance. The mass production of bics6 3D NAND is planned to start at the end of 2022. Western data plans to use these chips in products from cheap USB drives to PCIe 5.0 solid state drives.
Western Digital also talked about their upcoming BICS + flash memory with more than 200 layers, which will be available in 2024. Compared with bics6, it is characterized by 55% more bits per wafer, 60% higher transmission speed and 15% higher writing speed. It is worth noting that BICS + is only used for solid-state drives in data centers, because the company plans to provide different levels of 2XX layer NAND for consumer storage, known as bics-y.
Western data also shared that they are studying a variety of technologies to improve density and capacity, including PLC. They plan to build NAND with more than 500 layers in the next decade.