Japanese memory maker Kioxia is shipping a new low-power, high-capacity memory product.
Kioxia Holdings said Monday it has begun shipping 10th-generation NAND flash from its Kitakami plant in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The new product delivers performance of 4.8 gigabits per second, 30% higher than the previous generation, while data storage density improved by 60% and power efficiency by 30%.
Kioxia plans to mass-produce the product at the second manufacturing building of the Kitakami plant starting next year. The new product incorporates "CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array)," a 3D NAND flash manufacturing technology in which Kioxia holds a strong position. The technology involves manufacturing memory cells and control circuits (CMOS) separately on wafers and then bonding them, classified as a key technology that boosts processing performance beyond conventional production methods.
Despite the new product shipment, competitors such as Samsung Electronics are catching up rapidly. According to Kioxia data, competitors are expected to bring 4.8-gigabit-per-second NAND to market around the middle of next year. Kioxia launched its previous-generation product in the second half of 2023, nearly two years ahead of competitors, but its lead with this next-generation NAND has narrowed to about one year, suggesting its technological edge is shrinking.
On top of that, Chinese memory makers are also closing in fast. There is even speculation that China's Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) could be adopted in Apple's iPhones.
Kioxia President Hiroo Ota recently said, "Demand for high-performance NAND flash for AI servers is growing as artificial intelligence (AI) use expands," adding that the company will actively respond to market growth.
As ultra-high-capacity, high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for data centers become important in the inference process of AI data, the stock price of Kioxia, a major NAND manufacturer, has surged more than sevenfold this year. Kioxia shares closed at 83,300 yen on Monday, up 9.23% from the previous day.
