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posted by martyb on Monday July 23 2018, @03:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the making-a-bit-smaller dept.

Western Digital Begins to Sample QLC BiCS4: 1.33 Tbit 96-Layer 3D NAND

Western Digital has started sampling its 96-layer 3D NAND chips featuring QLC architecture that stores four bits per cell. The chip happens to be the world's highest-capacity 3D NAND device. The company expects to commence volume shipments of this memory chip already this calendar year.

Western Digital's 96-layer BICS4 3D QLC NAND chip can store up to 1.33 Tb of raw data, or around 166 GB. The IC will be initially used for consumer products Western Digital sells under the SanDisk brand, so think of memory cards (e.g., high-capacity SD and microSD products), USB drives, and some other devices. The manufacturer expects its 3D QLD[sic] NAND memory to be used in a variety of applications, including retail, mobile, embedded, client, and enterprise, but does not elaborate on timing at this point.

The 1.33-Tb BICS4 IC is Western Digital's second-gen 3D QLC NAND device. Last year the company announced its BICS3 64-layer 3D QLC chips featuring a 768 Gb capacity, but it is unclear whether they have ever been used for commercial products. Meanwhile, it is clear that the device was used to learn about 3D QLC behavior in general (i.e., endurance, read errors, retention, etc.)

[...] What is noteworthy is that officially the BiCS4 range was to include both TLC and QLC ICs with capacities ranging from 256 Gb to 1 Tb, so the 1.33 Tb IC is a surprising addition to the lineup which signals Western Digital's confidence of its technology.

Recent products have been using 512 Gb per die NAND, with 768 Gb and 1 Tb on the horizon. Samsung's announced 128 TB SSD was supposed to use 1 Tb 3D QLC dies, so ~1.33 Tb dies could bring that capacity to about 170 TB. Given a couple more generations of NAND or some fancy die/package stacking, and we will probably see a 1 petabyte SSD.

Related: SK Hynix Developing 96 and 128-Layer TLC 3D NAND
Western Digital Announces 96-Layer 3D NAND, Including Both TLC and QLC
WD Announces 64-Layer 3D QLC NAND With 768 Gb Per Die, to be Shown at Flash Memory Summit
Samsung Announces a 128 TB SSD With QLC NAND
Expect 20-30% Cheaper NAND in Late 2018
Samsung Announces a 30.72 TB 2.5" SSD
Micron Launches First QLC NAND SSD


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @06:04AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @06:04AM (#711079)

    I won't live long enough to see it all... but I suppose in that amount of time, porn will be holographic with haptic feedback, so no telling what the storage requirements will be, or how they will handle matter-based contaminants injected in the image.

    The people putting up the Georgia Guidestones will be pleased.. once holographic haptic porn goes public, what they wrote on the stones will be inevitable.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @02:16PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 23 2018, @02:16PM (#711229) Journal

    If holographic VR/AR haptic porn is based on incredibly detailed 3D models, raytracing, procedural generation, and AI, storage requirements might be lower than you expect. Store the likenesses of millions of different women people, maybe even those constructed from publicly available photos/videos, as well as fictional characters or models generated on the spot as if you are at a character creation screen. Then execute the scenario with rudimentary or strong (?) AI. You could have an essentially infinite amount of content with relatively low storage.

    I'm not sure "holographic" would change the data requirements that much over VR/AR. It just removes the need for goggles, although maybe you will need to wear a skintight suit to get that full-bodied "haptic feedback".

    One thing's for certain, if 170 TB is already feasible today, we will see the petabyte SSD within about 10 years. That could require 8 terabits per die (96 → 768 layers?), or less with special use of TSV to aggressively stack dies.

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