Western Digital Corp. has extended its partnership with Kioxia Corporation to jointly invest in the first phase of the FAb7 (Y7) manufacturing facility, based in Japan’s Mie Prefecture.
“We are very pleased to further deepen our strategic partnership with Western Digital through this joint investment in Y7,” said Nobuo Hayasaka, president and CEO of Kioxia, in a press release. “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.”
Located at Kioxia’s Yokkaichi Plant, Y7 celebrates the completion of construction for its first phase, and is ready to begin initial production starting this fall.
The addition will serve as the sixth flash memory manufacturing facility at the plant, further strengthening its already-powerful manufacturing capabilities. Y7’s first phase will cover the production of 3D flash memory, such as 112- and 162-layer and future nodes.
The investment continues a two-decade-long collaboration between the two companies. Both parties will continue building their growth strategies that correlate with market trends.
“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,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, president, Technology & Strategy, Western Digital, 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.”