In a rather unexpected turn of events, Western Digital (WD) has teased the industry's first 2Tb 3D QLC NAND device at an investor conference ahead of its official announcement. The new flash memory could potentially reshape the high-capacity solid-state drives market, enabling much faster and larger SSDs that consume less power. The device uses the proven 218-layer BiCS8 production node and is so tiny it can fit on a fingertip. WD also shared plenty of comparative performance data, touting power, density, and I/O performance gains over competing flash.
"I am really excited to share with you a preview of the BiCS8 2Tb 3D QLC die," said Robert Soderbery, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Western Digital's Flash Business. "We have designed this die to meet the data center and AI storage needs. We are going to shortly announce this product, but I want to share it with you today. This happens to be the world's highest-capacity memory die."
