Kioxia, the world’s second-biggest flash memory maker, plans to boost production of its 3D flash memory by building a new manufacturing plant at its Kitakami plant in northern Japan.
Moreover, construction of the new earthquake-resistant facility is scheduled to begin in April 2022 and is expected to be completed in 2023, the chipmaker said in a statement.
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Local media reported last year that Kioxia plans to spend about 2 trillion yen ($16.5 billion) on a new manufacturing plant to meet the growing demand for flash memory chips.
In February this year, DigiTimes quoted industry sources as saying that Kioxia had notified its customers that its 3D NAND flash memory shipments would be in short supply starting in April, and had stopped quoting in the spot market.
Earlier, Western Digital issued a statement saying that due to the contamination of certain materials used in the production process, the production operations of its joint venture factories with Kioxia in Yokohama and Kitakami, Japan may be affected, or at least 6.5 EB of flash memory is available. Kioxia has yet to issue a statement on the impact of the incident.
Furthermore, market watchers expect this could affect Kioxia’s total NAND flash shipments of as much as 16 exabytes or about 10 percent of the total NAND flash consumed in a quarter, the report said.
The latest report from market research firm TrendForce pointed out that the production shortage of Kioxia may cause the contract price of NAND flash memory to rise by 5-10% in the second quarter of 2022.
