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A number of companies have made announcements related to 64-layer 3D NAND production and products at Computex 2017:
64-layer NAND, and subsequently products with the technology, will make the largest splash at Computex 2017 this week. Toshiba, Western Digital, and SanDisk have product announcements in queue, with others set to follow. Toshiba already released some information about the technology at Dell World, so the other shoe has to drop from manufacturing partner WD. This is the moment many of us have waited for.
In short, Toshiba/WD are supposed to take us out of the NAND recession by delivering third-generation 3D NAND called BiCS FLASH.
BiCS FLASH may gain praise for reducing the strain on NAND supply, but our readers will be left behind for several quarters. SanDisk has said for years that the future focus will be on 3-bit per cell NAND (or TLC). That philosophy carried over to infect Western Digital after the SanDisk acquisition. No one talks about BiCS MLC for use in the client space, even though 3D TLC is unproven technology for high-performance products (outside of Samsung).
Toshiba isn't only company ready for a 64-layer makeover. IMFT (Intel Micron Flash Technology) will push second-generation 3D NAND. We won't see end products ready to sell at Computex, but we will see demos featuring 64-layer stacks that will double the existing 32-layer die density. We expect Intel to talk about 3D Gen 2 at a keynote in the coming days, and several companies have already said they will show working samples.
IMFT 64-layer NAND isn't as far along in the release process as Toshiba 64-layer BiCS FLASH, but it's not far behind. 3D TLC Gen 2 will reduce costs by more than 30% according to Micron. Like BiCS FLASH, the increase in bit output should help increase NAND supply and allow prices to return to steady levels with predictable declines in the near future. [...] I hate to say it, but TLC will be in nearly every new consumer SSD from this point forward. It's now up to the controller design houses to make it fast enough for enthusiast use.
Related: "String-Stacking" Being Developed to Enable 3D NAND With More Than 100 Layers
Toshiba Teasing QLC 3D NAND and TSV for More Layers
Western Digital and Samsung at the Flash Memory Summit
SK Hynix Plans 72-Layer 512 Gb NAND for Late 2017
(Score: 4, Informative) by richtopia on Thursday June 01 2017, @03:25PM
Don't take the lack of comments as a lack of interest. This article covers the major advances in the memory industry and I enjoyed reading it. However, I work in the semi industry so perhaps I'm a little more invested in what is being manufactured around the world.