Kioxia And Sandisk Tag-Team 3D Flash Memory Tech For A Huge SSD Speed Boost
The new memory, which Kioxia and Sandisk are calling "10th generation 3D Flash memory," is still the same familiar flash memory, but it uses a number of advancements to improve performance and efficiency. The press release names these advancements: CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) manufacturing, a Toggle DDR6.0 interface, the Separate Command Address protocol, and Power Isolated Low-Tapped Termination (PI-LTT) technology.
Thanks to these advancements, power consumption is apparently down 10% for input and a whopping 34% for output, while performance increases to 4.8 Gbps, as we noted before. The new 3D flash memory also ramps up density, with up to 332 memory layers, improving bit density by 59% over current-generation stuff. No word on when the 10th-gen stuff will make it to market, but it was just unveiled at ISSCC 2025, so it likely won't be this year.
Folks who follow storage technology are probably thinking, "wait, the current-gen is 8th-gen, so what happened to 9th-gen?" Well, the companies say that it's still coming too, and while the 9th-gen flash won't benefit from the Toggle DDR6.0 interface, the SCA protocol, or the PI-LTT technology, it will be fabricated using the CBA method, which the companies say will reduce manufacturing costs compared to the 8th-generation tech.
As you'd expect, Kioxia and Sandisk executives are hyping up the new flash memory for use with AI. It is true that AI is pushing out massive amounts of data against ever-tightening power constraints, so these advancements are certainly welcome. Hopefully the new 9th- and 10th-gen flash memory can bring down the prices of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, finally.
