Flash memory technology advances at electronica 2018

Innovation is rapid in the automotive arena and Toshiba will be showcasing their solutions to address the increasing (and increasingly demanding) applications including automated driver assistance systems (ADAS), in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and vehicle based wireless communication. Toshiba Memory’s solutions cover both e-MMC and UFS technologies in capacities up to 256 GB and are available qualified to AEC-Q100, demonstrating their suitability for demanding automotive applications.

On their booth will be a 96-layer BiCS FLASH, memory device using proprietary 3D flash quad level cell (QLC) technology. QLC significantly expands capacity, achieving the industry's maximum capacity of 1.33 terabits for a single chip and an unparallelled capacity of 2.66 terabytes in a single package by utilising a 16-chip stacked architecture. This was developed in conjunction with Western Digital Corporation and SSDs based on this technology will be significant in meeting the demanding needs of the IoT and other similar applications.

Additional highlights at the show will be the BG3, XG5 and XG6 client NVMe SSD series from Toshiba Memory Europe. The BG3 client NVMe SSDs are based on Toshiba 64-layer BiCS FLASH memory technology and are designed to deliver better performance and a smaller footprint than traditional SATA-based drives. These internal drives enable mobile computing and IoT devices to be smaller, lighter, faster and more power efficient.

Visitors can find out more about the XG6 client NVMe SSD at the booth too. With its breakthrough 96-layer, BICS FLASH 3D flash memory technology, the new drives are targeted to the client PC, high-performance mobile, embedded, and gaming segments, as well as datacentre environments for boot drives in servers, caching and logging, and commodity storage.

To support mass production and continued innovation in 3D flash memory Toshiba Memory opened a new semiconductor fabrication facility and a Memory R&D Center, at Toshiba Memory’s Yokkaichi Operations in Mie prefecture, Japan. The production facility contains manufacturing equipment for key production processes including deposition and etching. The new fab began mass production of 96-layer 3D flash memories in September.