Toshiba Demos First 64-Layer BiCS 3D NAND-Based NVMe SSD At Dell EMC World
This week, Toshiba is showcasing its 64-layer BiCS flash live at the Dell EMC World conference being held in Las Vegas. On hand was a prototype XG-series NVMe PCIe SSD equipped with 1TB of BiCS 3D TLC NAND. Naturally, the prototype SSD was housed within a Dell XPS laptop, which is appropriate given the setting. Unfortunately, although we got “eyes on” the demo, we weren’t able to see any performance benchmarks due to this not being production hardware.
“Toshiba SSDs powered by the 64-layer 3D device and in-house controller increase value to our customers' products by boosting the maximum offered drive capacities and presenting superior speed, performance and endurance,” said Shigenori Yanagi, a SSD technology executive for Toshiba Memory Corporation. “We are excited to first demonstrate our newest BiCS FLASH technology at Dell EMC World and provide a glimpse of 3D flash memory-based SSDs to come.”
In the future, Toshiba is planning to shift all of its client, data center and enterprise SSDs over to BiCS 64-layer 3D NAND tech. Although Toshiba has not given a firm timeline as to when this transition will occur, it wants to solidify its position as the fastest growing storage device vendor, which IDC recently confirmed in its own analysis.
Additional pieces in Toshiba’s BiCS flash puzzle are its Fab 6 semiconductor fabrication facility and Memory R&D Center, which are located at Yokkaichi Operations in Mie prefecture, Japan. Completion of the Memory R&D Center is slated for the end of 2017, while Fab 6 will reach Phase 1 competing during the summer of 2018.
