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Western Digital has unveiled the BiCS8 2Tb QLC, the world’s highest capacity memory chip. The company claims this innovation marks the beginning of a new era in NAND memory technology, enabling faster and more capacious SSDs with lower energy consumption.
Developed in collaboration with Kioxia, BiCS8 technology represents a significant leap forward. Together, Western Digital and Kioxia account for one-third of the global NAND flash memory production. Compared to the previous generation, BiCS8 offers 50% greater memory density and a 12% increase in memory layer density. This advancement underpins the new 2Tb QLC chip.
The chip is built using a 218-layer manufacturing process, making it incredibly compact—small enough to fit on the tip of a finger. To create a 1TB SSD, only four of these 2Tb chips are needed. For a 2TB SSD, eight chips are required, and for a 4TB SSD, sixteen chips are needed. This technological advancement could lead to a reduction in the cost of high-capacity solid-state drives.
Western Digital also reports that the chip’s bandwidth has been increased by 30%, enhancing data read and write speeds—crucial for data centers. Additionally, read latency has been reduced by 21%. Another significant achievement is the 13% reduction in energy consumption per gigabyte of data compared to competitors’ solutions.
While Western Digital has not specified when SSDs featuring this new chip will be available, the breakthrough promises to significantly impact the market and meet growing demands for more efficient and higher-capacity storage solutions.
This announcement is particularly relevant for American consumers and businesses, as the demand for faster and more efficient data storage continues to rise in the U.S. tech industry.
