96-Layer 3D NAND And QLC NAND

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-...37487.html

Not to be upstaged, flash partners Toshiba and WD both announced their jointly-produced 3D QLC NAND yesterday in separate announcements. The announcements contained quite a bit more information, so we know that the new 96-layer BiCS4 flash has a density of 1.33 terabits2 per die.

SSDs come with up to 16 die per package, so that means Toshiba and WD will soon be able to pack in a whopping 2.66TB of storage into a single NAND package. The duo plans to begin sampling the BiCS4 QLC NAND in September and mass production is slated for early 2019. More importantly, WD's release clearly states that QLC SSDs will come to the consumer market under the SanDisk brand name. We expect Toshiba to follow suit with its own consumer SSDs.

SSDs have slowly chipped away at HDD market share over the last few years and WD even recently decided to shut down one of its primary HDD production plants due to reduced demand. SSD prices continue to plunge and many analyst firms predict even larger drops as the Chinese Yangtze River Storage Technology fabs begin to pump out 3D NAND. Samsung is also reportedly gearing up to increase its NAND production dramatically with a $2.6 billion increase in spending in 2019. Next year is shaping up to the year of QLC SSDs, which could be the final ingredient needed to push HDDs out of the primary storage role entirely.