New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital on Friday announced that they have developed their sixth-generation, 162-layer 3D flash memory technology.

Marking the next milestone in the companies' 20-year joint-venture partnership, this is the companies' highest density and most advanced 3D flash memory technology to date, utilising a wide range of technology and manufacturing innovations.

"Together, we produce over 30 per cent of the world's flash memory bits and are steadfast in our mission to provide exceptional capacity, performance and reliability at a compelling cost. We each deliver this value proposition across a range of data-centric applications from personal electronics to data centers as well as emerging applications enabled by 5G networks, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems," Masaki Momodomi, Chief Technology Officer, Kioxia, said in a statement.

This sixth-generation 3D flash memory features advanced architecture beyond the conventional eight-stagger memory hole array and achieves up to 10 per cent greater lateral cell array density, compared to the fifth-generation technology.

This lateral scaling advancement, in combination with 162 layers of stacked vertical memory, enables a 40 pe rcent reduction in die size compared to the 112-layer stacking technology, optimising cost.

"With this new generation, Kioxia and Western Digital are introducing innovations in vertical as well as lateral scaling to achieve greater capacity in a smaller die with fewer layers. This innovation ultimately delivers the performance, reliability and cost that customers need," Siva Sivaram, President of Technology & Strategy, Western Digital.

Overall, the new 3D flash memory technology reduces the cost per bit, as well as increases the manufactured bits per wafer by 70 per cent, compared with the previous generation.