Toshiba, SanDisk to mass produce high-power '3D' memory

May 14, 2014

Japan's Toshiba is teaming up with US chip giant SanDisk to produce a "3D" memory chip they hope will allow users to save up to 50 hours of ultra-high definition video.

Japan's Toshiba is teaming up with US chip giant SanDisk to produce a "3D" memory chip they hope will allow users to save up to 50 hours of ultra-high definition video.

In a deal worth a reported 500 billion yen ($4.84 billion) the companies will build a factory to make flash memory consisting of several layers of semiconductors stacked together to give as much as a terabyte -- 1,000 gigabytes -- of storage.

That is around 16 times bigger than the largest 64-gigabyte Toshiba memory currently available in smart phones and tablet devices.

Toshiba will demolish its existing plant in Japan to build a new facility that will house production apparatus using technologies from both firms and which the firms hope will start operating in 2016, a statement said.

"In about five years (from the planned start of the factory), we would like to produce one-terabyte products," said a Toshiba spokeswoman.

The plan comes at a time of increasing competition among the world's technology firms to meet demand for ever-higher capacity memory chips for consumers increasingly using mobile devices such as smart phones, tablet computers and wearable gadgets.

The spread of high-definition video, with so-called 4K screens at the leading edge, is boosting demand for computing memory to store content.

"Small, high-capacity memories can of course be applied to smartphones, but they could also be used for wearable devices," the Toshiba spokeswoman said. AFP

 

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