Overview
- Kioxia and SanDisk began manufacturing 10th‑generation BiCS FLASH at the Kitakami K2 (Fab2) building and started shipping 1Tb TLC functional samples for customer testing on July 2–3, 2026.
- Kioxia says the 10th‑gen chips use 332 stacked layers and a denser plane layout to deliver 59% higher bit density versus its 8th generation and a 4.8 Gb/s NAND interface that is 33% faster.
- The company reports write and read power efficiency gains of about 18% and 30% respectively, which can cut data‑center energy use and lower cooling and space needs for AI workloads.
- Kioxia and SanDisk have extended their joint venture through December 2034 and Kioxia disclosed plans for large equipment spending, targeting roughly ¥470 billion per year on average for three years to scale output.
- K2’s design uses seismic isolation and expanded AI tools for production efficiency, and Kioxia warned the shipped parts are for functional testing and that final mass‑production specs may change during qualification.