Western Digital, Kioxia to jointly invest in new flash memory facility at Yokkaichi plant

Western Digital Corp (WDC) and Kioxia Corp said last week they had formally agreed to jointly invest in the first phase of the Fab7 (Y7) manufacturing facility at Kioxia’s Yokkaichi plant located in the Mie Prefecture of Japan.

Construction of the first phase of the Y7 facility has already been completed, while initial production is slated to begin in the fall of 2022.

The current joint-venture investment will add a 6th flash memory manufacturing facility to the Yokkaichi plant and will further strengthen its position as the largest flash memory manufacturing site worldwide.

The first phase of the Y7 facility is to manufacture 3D flash memory, including 112- and 162-layer and future nodes.

“This joint investment in Y7 accentuates our productive and positive relationship with Kioxia, underscoring our substantial global share in memory, the ongoing importance of memory and storage and our multi-faceted commitment to Japan,” Siva Sivaram, President, Technology & Strategy at Western Digital, said in a press release.

“Our strategic partnership with Kioxia has led to the introduction of leading-edge technology while increasing the scale of manufacturing and R&D capabilities. We look forward to continuing to drive long-term success together.”

“The rapid digitization of societies underpins accelerating use of memory products. We will continue to leverage our technological partnership and economies of scale to develop and produce cutting-edge semiconductor products and achieve organic corporate growth,” Nobuo Hayasaka, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kioxia Corp, said.