Sabrent today debuted the Rocket 4 line of DRAMless M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, these drives take advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, and provide sequential transfer speeds of up to 7.4 GB/s reads, with up to 6.4 GB/s writes. The drives also offer 4K random access performance of up to 1 million IOPS reads, and 0.95 million IOPS writes. For now, Sabrent is launching 1 TB and 2 TB capacity variants of the Rocket 4, but the company is preparing to launch a larger 4 TB variant soon.

The Sabrent Rocket 4 combines a Phison E27T series DRAMless controller with Kioxia 162-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory (also known as the BiCS 6). There's just a copper foil heat spreader to keep things cool. The 12 nm E27T doesn't run anywhere near as hot as the E18, so you can make do with the heatsink your motherboard includes, or run it the way it is. The 1 TB variant is priced at $99.99, and the 2 TB variant at $199.99. The company didn't reveal pricing of the unreleased 4 TB variant.

TrendForce reports that anticipation of NAND Flash price hikes into Q2 has motivated certain suppliers to minimize losses and lower costs in hopes of returning to profitability this year. Kioxia and WD led the charge from March, boosting their capacity utilization rates to nearly 90%—a move not widely adopted by their competitors.

TrendForce points out that to meet the demand surge in the second half of the year, especially given Kioxia and Western Digital's currently low inventory, the production increase is mainly targeting 112-layer and select 2D products. This strategy is expected not only to secure profitability within the year but also to contribute to a projected 10.9% rise in the annual NAND Flash industry supply bit growth rate for 2024.

With the effective reduction of production by suppliers, the price of memory is rebounding, and the semiconductor memory market finally shows signs of recovery. From the perspective of market dynamics and demand changes, NAND Flash, as one of the two major memory products, is experiencing a new round of changes. Since 3Q23, NAND Flash chip prices have been on the rise for several consecutive months. TrendForce believes that, under the precondition of a conservative market demand prospect for 2024, chip price trends will depend on suppliers' production capacity utilization.

There have been frequent developments in the NAND flash memory industry chain, with some manufacturers indicating a willingness to raise prices or increase production capacity utilization. Wallace C. Kou, General Manager of NAND Flash Supplier SIMO, stated that prices for the second quarter of NAND Flash have already been settled down, which will increase by 20%; some suppliers have started to make profits in the first quarter, and most suppliers will earn money after the second quarter.

Intel Corporation today announced that Stacy Smith, executive chairman of Kioxia Corporation, formerly Toshiba Memory Corporation, and chair of Autodesk Inc., was appointed to Intel's board of directors, effective immediately. Smith will serve as an independent director and join the board's Audit & Finance Committee.
"Stacy's deep understanding of the semiconductor industry, along with Intel's history and strategy, will be a significant asset to the board as it guides the company's transformation journey," said Frank D. Yeary, chairman of the Intel board. "In particular, Stacy's expertise in finance and leading capital allocation strategies in the capital-intensive semiconductor industry will be additive to Intel's board as the company continues its efforts to create a globally resilient semiconductor supply chain."

Smith, 61, spent nearly 30 years at Intel, serving in a variety of leadership roles. Prior to his retirement in 2018, he served as the group president of manufacturing, operations and sales, leading the company's global Technology and Manufacturing Group and its worldwide sales organization. Prior to this, he spent more than a decade in finance leadership roles, including as chief financial officer. In addition, Smith held the role of chief information officer and, before that, was general manager of Intel Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), where he was responsible for Intel sales and marketing for the EMEA region.

The third quarter of 2023 witnessed suppliers dramatically cutting production, which underpinned enterprise SSD prices. The fourth quarter saw a resurgence in contract prices, driven by robust buying activity and heightened demand from server brands and buoyed by optimistic capital expenditure forecasts for 2024. This, combined with increased demand from various end products entering their peak sales period and ongoing reductions in OEM NAND Flash inventories, resulted in some capacity shortages. Consequently, fourth-quarter enterprise SSD prices surged by over 15%. TrendForce highlights that this surge in demand and prices led to a 47.6% QoQ increase in enterprise SSD industry revenues in 4Q23, reaching approximately $23.1 billion.

The stage is set for continued fervor as we settle into the new year and momentum from server brand orders continues to heat up—particularly from Chinese clients. On the supply side, falling inventory levels and efforts to exit loss-making positions have prompted enterprise SSD prices to climb, with contract prices expected to increase by over 25%. This is anticipated to fuel a 20% revenue growth in Q1.

TrendForce reports a substantial 24.5% QoQ increase in NAND Flash industry revenue, hitting US$11.49 billion in 4Q23. This surge is attributed to a stabilization in end-demand spurred by year-end promotions, along with an expansion in component market orders driven by price chasing, leading to robust bit shipments compared to the same period last year. Additionally, the corporate sector's continued positive outlook for 2024 demand—compared to 2023—and strategic stockpiling have further fueled this growth.

Looking ahead to 1Q24, despite it traditionally being an off-season, the NAND Flash industry is expected to see a continued increase in revenue by another 20%. This anticipation is underpinned by significant improvements in supply chain inventory levels and ongoing price rises, with clients ramping up their orders to sidestep potential supply shortages and escalating costs. The ongoing expansion of order sizes is expected to drive NAND Flash contract prices up by an average of 25%.

Japan's Jiji news agency has cottoned onto a major computer memory industry rumble—a Friday Reuters report suggests that Kioxia has offered an olive branch to SK Hynix, perhaps in a renewed push to get its proposed (and once rejected) merger with Western Digital over the finishing line. The South Korean memory manufacturing juggernaut took great issue with the suggested formation of a mighty Japanese-American 3D NAND memory chip conglomerate—SK Hynix's opposition reportedly placed great pressure on Western Digital (WD), and discussions with Kioxia ended last October.

Kioxia is seemingly eager to resume talks with WD, but requires a thumbs up from SK Hynix—according to Jiji's insider source(s), the Tokyo-headquartered manufacturer is prepared to offer its South Korean rival a nice non-volatile memory production deal. Kioxia's best Japanese 3D NAND fabrication facilities could play host to SK Hynix designs, although it is too early to tell whether this bid has been accepted. The Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants are set to receive a 150 billion yen Government subsidy—Kioxia and WD's joint venture is expected to move into cutting-edge semiconductor production. The Japanese government is hoping to secure its native operations in times of industry flux.

Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corporation announced today that their joint venture manufacturing facilities at Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants have been approved to receive an up to 150 billion yen subsidy, including facilities that will produce its latest generation of 3D flash memory based on the innovative wafer bonding technology and future generation advanced nodes. The subsidy will be granted under a designated government program aimed at facilitating corporate investment in cutting-edge semiconductor production facilities and securing stable production of semiconductors in Japan. This marks the second time that Kioxia's and Western Digital's joint venture manufacturing facilities are receiving this subsidy from the Japanese government. Previously, the joint venture manufacturing facility at Yokkaichi was approved to receive up to 92.9 billion yen subsidy from the Japanese government in 2022.

Leveraging an over 20-year joint venture partnership, Kioxia and Western Digital will continue to enhance the development and production capabilities of cutting-edge flash memory at the Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants in Japan. In addition, the two companies will contribute to the development of semiconductor-related industries and talent.

Today, KIOXIA SSDs took flight with the launch of the NG-20 mission rocket, which is delivering an updated HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, based on HPE EdgeLine and ProLiant servers from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), to the International Space Station (ISS). KIOXIA SSDs provide robust flash storage in HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 to conduct scientific experiments aboard the space station.

HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, based on commercial off-the-shelf technology, provides edge computing and AI capabilities on board the research outpost as part of a greater mission to significantly advance computing power in space and reduce dependency on communications as space exploration continues to expand. Designed to perform various high-performance computing (HPC) workloads in space, including real-time image processing, deep learning, and scientific simulations, HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 can be used to compute a number of experiment types including healthcare, natural disaster recovery, 3D printing, 5G, AI, and more.

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced sampling of the industry's first Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Ver. 4.0 embedded flash memory devices designed for automotive applications. These new, higher performing devices deliver fast embedded storage transfer speeds in a small package size and are targeted to a variety of next-generation automotive applications, including telematics, infotainment systems and ADAS. The improved performance] of UFS products from Kioxia - including approximately +100% for sequential read speed and approximately +40% for sequential write speed - enables these applications to take advantage of 5G's connectivity benefits, leading to faster system startup times and a better user experience.

The first to introduce UFS technology, Kioxia continues to move the technology forward. Its new UFS Ver. 4.0 devices integrate the company's innovative BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and a controller in a JEDEC-standard package. UFS 4.0 incorporates MIPI M-PHY 5.0 and UniPro 2.0 and supports theoretical interface speeds of up to 23.2 Gbps per lane or 46.4 Gbps per device. UFS 4.0 is backward compatible with UFS 3.1.

The PC master race has yielded many interesting activities for enthusiasts alike, with perhaps the pinnacle of activities being overclocking. Usually, subjects for overclocking include CPUs, GPUs, and RAM, with other components not actually being capable of overclocking. However, the enthusiast force never seems to settle, and today, we have proof of overclocking an off-the-shelf 2.5-inch SATA III NAND Flash SSD thanks to Gabriel Ferraz, a Computer Engineering graduate, and TechPowerUp's SSD database maintainer. He uses the RZX Pro 256 GB SSD in the video, a generic NAND Flash drive. The RZX Pro uses the Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 single-core, 32-bit ARC CPU running up to 550 MHz. It has two channels at 400 MHz, each with eight chip enable interconnects, allowing up to 16 NAND Flash dies to operate. The SSD doesn't feature a DRAM cache or support a host memory buffer. It has only one NAND Flash memory chip from Kioxia, uses BiCS FLASH 4 architecture, has 96 layers, and has 256 GB capacity.

While this NAND Flash die is rated for up to 400 MHz or 800 MT/s, it only ran at less than half the speed at 193.75 MHz or 387.5 MT/s at default settings. Gabriel acquired a SATA III to USB 3.0 adapter with a JMS578 bridge chip to perform the overclock. This adapter allows hot swapping of SSDs without the need to turn off the PC. He shorted two terminals in the drive's PCB to get the SSD to operate without its default safe mode. Mass Production Tools (MPTools), which OEMs use to flash SSDs, were used to change the firmware settings. Each NAND Flash architecture has its own special version of MPTools. The software directly shows control of the Flash clock, CPU clock, and output driving. However, additional tweaks like Flash IO driving with subdivisions need modifications. Control and Flash On-Die Termination (ODT) and Schmitt window trigger (referring to the Schmitt trigger comparator circuit) also needed a few modifications to make it work.

KIOXIA brought a handful of its latest data center SSDs to the 2024 International CES. The lineup begins with the CD8P series designed for a balance in data-heat (frequency of access) and capacity, with applications that include CDN, compute, read-intensive use-cases, and data streaming. The drive comes in the 2.5-inch 18 mm U.2 and EDSFF E3.8 form-factors. The CD8P features a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, and comes in capacities ranging between 1.92 TB, going all the way up to 15.36 TB. Write endurance recommended is between 1 DWPD to 3 DWPD, so this really isn't a major write-intensive drive, for that, you'll need to pay attention to our next drive, the KIOXIA FL6.

The FL6 from KIOXIA is a scribe par none. It's aimed at write heavy applications such as server caching, and the hottest tiers in tiered storage; and Big Iron database machines. The FL6 comes in capacities of up to 3.2 TB, but offers a mammoth 60 DWPD write endurance. It comes in the 2.5-inch 18 mm form factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface. Security features include SIE, SED, and FIPS 140-2.

Next week at CES 2024, KIOXIA, the inventors of NAND flash, will highlight its extensive portfolio of solid state drives (SSDs) and memory solutions. This diverse lineup - one of the broadest range of flash solutions in the industry - is well-suited to virtually any solution that uses flash and includes new products, form factors and standards designed for upcoming IT requirements.

In today's dynamic technological landscape, where evolving standards push performance boundaries higher and end user expectations continue to climb, KIOXIA stands poised for the future by making the memory to process, manage and store the world's data. "Whether it's designing ultra-thin consumer PCs, enabling the automotive in-vehicle experience or streamlining professional photography - we make flash memory that brings applications to life and enhances user experiences," said Alex Mei, vice president of corporate marketing for KIOXIA America, Inc. "Countless consumer devices and applications rely on KIOXIA technology solutions to enrich lives and make new memories. CES gives us an opportunity to explore new possibilities and showcase the depth and breadth of our solutions."

Plextor, one of the most iconic names in PC storage once known for high performance and quality, has announced it will cease operations. Parent company Kioxia has decided to retire the Plextor brand name for solid state drives (SSDs). Instead, it will market products under its Solid State Storage Technology Corporation (SSSTC) brand going forward. The move comes after Kioxia acquired Plextor and its parent company Lite-On's SSD business back in 2019. Since then, Plextor has struggled to keep pace with new storage technologies. With PCIe Gen 4 and PCIe Gen 5 SSD controllers coming to market, Plextor failed to adopt the new Phison and InnoGrit platforms, instead sticking with Marvell controllers, lagging behind at that time.

Now, SSSTC and Kioxia will strictly focus SSD sales on the enterprise, data center, and industrial segments rather than the consumer market. The Plextor website is already redirecting to SSSTC.com, which no longer lists any drives for client PCs. While current Plextor SSD owners will continue to receive warranty support and RMA services, no new Plextor drives are expected to be released. The company had a history stretching back over 30 years of making top-performing optical disk drives and SSDs. Similarly to OCZ after its acquisition by Toshiba, the Plextor name will now fade into history. But in the fast-moving storage business, companies live and die by their ability to adopt cutting-edge technologies. Hence, companies are always on the edge of their seats, trying to survive.

KIOXIA today released the maximum possible storage capacity for the microSDXC standard of 2 TB, with the release of the Exceria Plus G2 microSDXC 2 TB model. It is also the highest data storage density among any storage device by physical volume. To pull this off, KIOXIA innovated a NAND flash device that stacks sixteen 1 terabit (128 GB) layers, with a Z-height for the package being just 0.8 mm. The card meets UHS Class 3. application class A1, and video class V30, which means an assured write speed of at least 30 MB/s. The company claims maximum sequential read speeds of 100 MB/s, with 90 MB/s maximum write speeds. KIOXIA has initially released the card in its home market of Japan, and hopes to release it in other markets soon.

KIOXIA America, Inc. today announced that its CM7 Series and CD8P Series NVM Express (NVMe) SSDs have passed certification testing for PCI Express (PCIe) 5.0 specification and NVMe 2.0 specification compliance. Developed by PCI-SIG, the PCIe 5.0 interface specification is an upgrade that enables twice the data transfer speed and bandwidth versus the PCIe 4.0 specification - up to 14,000 Megabyte/s read throughput for a x4 lane SSD. PCIe 5.0 tests were conducted at PCI-SIG compliance workshops against PCI-SIG maintained systems, along with other leading manufacturers of PCIe products.

KIOXIA CM7 Series and CD8P Series drives can now be found on the PCI-SIG Integrator's List. Achieving compliance certification during these workshops assures users that KIOXIA drives meet the rigorous PCIe 5.0 specification requirements. KIOXIA CM7 Series and CD8P Series drives have been added to The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory's (UNH-IOL) official Integrator's List. In order to be considered for inclusion on the list, technologies must undergo conformance testing performed by the UNH-IOL through laboratory tests or during an NVMe plugfest. Successful completion of this testing provides a level of assurance that the product being tested will function properly in NVMe enabled systems and NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) environments.

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced that its lineup of KIOXIA RM7 Series Value SAS SSDs are now available in HPE ProLiant Gen11 servers from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). KIOXIA RM7 Series SSDs are the latest generation of the company's 12 Gb/s Value SAS SSDs, which provide server applications with higher performance, reliability and lower latency than SATA SSDs, delivering higher IOPS/W and IOPS/$.

In addition to being available in ProLiant servers, KIOXIA RM Series Value SAS SSDs are being used in the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 (SBC-2). As part of the program, KIOXIA SSDs provide robust flash storage in HPE Edgeline and HPE ProLiant servers in a test environment to conduct scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

TrendForce reports a pivotal shift in the NAND Flash market for 3Q23, primarily driven by Samsung's strategic decision to reduce production. Initially, the market was clouded by uncertainty regarding end-user demand and fears of a subdued peak season, prompting buyers to adopt a conservative approach with low inventory and slow procurement. However, as market leaders like Samsung implemented substantial production cuts, buyers' attitudes shifted toward a more aggressive procurement strategy in anticipation of a market supply decrease. This led to a stabilization and even an uptick in NAND Flash contract prices by quarter-end, driving a 3% QoQ increase in bit shipments and culminating in a total revenue of US$9.229 billion, marking an approximate 2.9% increase.

The story unfolds with Kioxia and Micron—the only two to witness a dip in revenue rankings this quarter—while Samsung maintained its robust performance. Despite sluggish demand in the server sector, Samsung's fortunes rebounded thanks to a boost in consumer electronics, especially with high-capacity products in PCs and smartphones. Samsung emerged from a trough in Q3, with strategic inventory replenishments fueling further strategic stocking, and a shift in operational focus toward maximizing profit. This led to a minor 1-3% decrease in shipped bits, but a 1-3% increase in ASP, stabilizing Q3 NAND Flash revenue at US$2.9 billion.

According to sources close to Nikkei, the merger discussions between Western Digital and Kioxia has been terminated. Western Digital notified Kioxia about scrapping the possible transaction, citing the failure to obtain approval from SK Hynix, a significant shareholder of Kioxia, and disagreements over merger terms with Bain Capital, Kioxia's main shareholder. Western Digital and Kioxia, holding the fourth and second positions in the global NAND flash memory market, respectively, planned to join their NAND operations under one roof to create the world's largest maker of NAND memory and potentially enhance their competitive standing and profitability.

The merger was seen as a strategic move to rival Samsung's market dominance by leveraging the companies' combined resources and capabilities, and the plan was to happen as soon as the end of this month. However, the merger faced substantial opposition from SK Hynix, the world's third-largest NAND supplier with a 17.8% market share. Having invested more than $2.6 billion in a consortium led by Bain Capital that previously acquired Kioxia in 2018, SK Hynix expressed concerns that the proposed merger would adversely impact its market position and future collaboration opportunities with Kioxia. This opposition proved to be a pivotal obstacle, preventing the realization of the merger.

According to Kyodo News, Japanese chip manufacturer Kioxia and its U.S. counterpart Western Digital are reportedly on the verge of finalizing a merger agreement, aiming to create the world's largest producer of memory chips. The merger plan involves establishing a holding company to consolidate their operations for producing NAND flash memory chips, with the announcement reportedly coming this month. The merged entity is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the United States. As the global semiconductor market contends with competitive pressures and fluctuating demand, the merger is seen as a strategic move to enhance the combined market position of both companies.

Western Digital shareholders are anticipated to hold a majority stake in the new entity, with Kioxia's shareholders, including Toshiba Corporation, owning the remaining stake. The move is poised to give the newly formed company a combined market share of 35.4 percent in NAND memory chips as of March, surpassing South Korea's Samsung, the current leader, with 34.3 percent. However, the merger's ultimate approval hinges on regulators' decisions, including those in China, as semiconductors have become increasingly integral to global economic security. Major Japanese banks, including MUFG Bank and the state-backed Development Bank of Japan, are contemplating loans of up to approximately 1.9 trillion yen (about $12.7 billion) to facilitate the merger.

The drawn out merger talks between Kioxia and Western Digital's memory and NAND flash manufacturing businesses appears to have hit an unexpected bump on the road, in the shape of SK Hynix according to the Nikkei. As it happens, SK Hynix holds an indirect stake in Kioxia and as such, they need to approve the merger for it to be able to happen. Today, SK Hynix is the second biggest manufacturer of NAND flash, somewhat behind Samsung, but if the Kioxia WD merger were to take place, SK Hynix would be pushed into a third place in the market, which wouldn't benefit the company.

As such, SK Hynix is trying to push for a rather odd option for Kioxia, where SK Hynix wants Japanese SoftBank—who owns among other things, Arm—to step in as a partner with Kioxia. However, what SK Hynix seems to have forgotten is that WD's memory chips are made in the same fab as Kioxia's and it's highly unlikely that WD would be keen on seeing this last minute proposal by SK Hynix play out. The Kioxia WD merger would result in a new company where Kioxia would own 63 percent and WD 37 percent, based on current assets. However, WD is meant to add further capital to the merger, so it can get a 50.1 percent stake in the final company for its shareholders, with Kioxia ending up with 49.9 percent.

During the China Chip Storage Future 2023 Storage Industry Trend Summit, Yingren Technology, widely recognized as InnoGrit outside of China, announced the initiation of mass production of its enterprise-level YR S900 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Marking a significant breakthrough, the YR S900 stands as China's first domestic PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Operating on an open-source RISC-V architecture, the YR S900 is engineered to align with U.S. export restrictions, ensuring a seamless design and manufacturing process of the SSD controller. While Yingren Technology remains discreet about the specific process node to produce the YR S900, it's known that the controller embodies a versatile design, with compatibility extending to mainstream NAND from eminent manufacturers, and exhibits an impressive synergy with NAND from Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC).

The YR S900 is a quad-channel controller, offering sequential read and write speeds peaking at 14 GB/s and 12 GB/s, respectively, and is equipped with InnoGrit's third-generation ECC engine to optimize 4K LDPC encoding and decoding. This collaboration with Kioxia's XL-Flash results in a low 4K random read latency of 10us, highlighting its potential to deliver higher data throughput, increased stability, and extended service life. The YR S900 encompasses a comprehensive feature set, including FDP, SR-IOV hardware virtualization, CMB, and a range of data encryption algorithms. While the mass production of the YR S900 underscores a monumental stride in SSD solutions within China, it remains to be seen whether adopting this new Chinese technology will enter markets beyond China.

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced sampling of new, higher performing JEDEC e-MMC Ver. 5.1-compliant embedded flash memory products for consumer applications. The new products integrate a newer version of the company's BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and a controller in a single package, reducing processor workload and improving ease of use. Both 64 and 128 gigabytes (GB) products will be available.

As the market continues to shift to UFS, there are cases where e-MMC may still be used. This includes consumer products with mid-range storage requirements such as tablets, personal computers, point of sale devices and other portable handheld devices, as well as smart TVs and smart NICs. Kioxia continues to reinforce its market-leading position by delivering a broad, high-performance product lineup and expanding the available options for these applications.

Insiders claim that a potential merger between Western Digital and Kioxia is closer to happening—following longer than anticipated negotiation between involved parties, including Bain Capital and Toshiba. Technicalities have prolonged proceedings—an August 2023 sign off date was expected—but Kioxia Holdings' lenders seem motivated to get everything over the finish line. According to a Bloomberg report, at least three Japanese banks are ready to submit a commitment letter (next month) for the refinancing of ¥2 trillion ($14 billion) in loans—anonymous sources suggest that Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are involved. These organizations hope to fund the merger with Western Digital's flash memory business.

Representatives for Western Digital, Kioxia, Bain Capital and (so far named) Japanese banks have declined to provide statements in response to the Bloomberg report. Allegedly, part of the loan will be used to pay special dividends to Kioxia's shareholders. A Reuters summary of said conditions reads: "Under the terms of the deal being negotiated, Western Digital will hold about 50.5% of the combined company with the remaining 49.5% held by Kioxia...Of the 2 trillion yen loan, 400 billion yen will likely be funded through loan commitments and the Development Bank of Japan will provide a loan of 300 billion yen. The rest will likely be equally split between the three megabanks." Bloomberg's insiders believe that Western Digital's hard drive business is not being offered up.

KIOXIA America, Inc. today announced that it has donated a command set specification to the Linux Foundation vendor-neutral Software-Enabled FlashTM Project. Built to deliver on the promise of software-defined flash, Software-Enabled Flash technology gives storage developers control over their data placement, latency outcomes, and workload isolation requirements. Through its open API and SDKs, hyperscale environments may optimize their own flash protocols, such as flexible direct placement (FDP) or zoned namespace (ZNS), while accelerating adoption of new flash technologies. This unique combination of open source software and purpose-built hardware can help data centers maximize the value of flash memory. KIOXIA has developed working samples of hardware modules for hyperscalers, storage developers and application developers.

"We are delighted to provide command set specifications to the Software-Enabled Flash Project," said Eric Ries, senior vice president and general manager of the Memory and Storage Strategy Division for KIOXIA America, Inc. "This is an important step that allows the ecosystem to bring products to market, and enables customers to extract the maximum value from flash memory."