Material contamination at Kioxia / WDC JV fabs
In two separate press releases, Western Digital Corp. and Kioxia Corporation, inform that contamination of certain material used in its manufacturing processes has occurred and is affecting production operations at the companies Yokkaichi and Kitakami flash fabrication facilities.
The contamination – which said to have occurred in late January – is partially affecting production of its 3D flash memory BiCS FLASH at both plants, according to the companies.
The Yokkaichi plant, located on Mie prefecture in Japan, is one of the world’s largest flash memory production facilities. The Kitakami Plant on the Iwate prefecture, was expanded as recently as December 2020 in order to increase increase production of the company’ proprietary 3D Flash memory BiCS FLASH.
Kioxia says that it is implementing the necessary measures to restore the facilities to normal operational status as quickly as possible – without specifying any of the measures. The company says that it does not anticipate any negative effects on the shipment of its conventional 2D NAND flash memory.
Western Digital states in its press release that the company’s current assessment of the impact is a reduction of its flash availability of at least 6.5 exabytes.
