Previously, Toshiba was producing a 48 layer device and the move to 64 layers is said to provide 40% more capacity in the same chip size, along with a lower cost per bit. Applications are expected to include enterprise and consumer solid state drives, smartphones, tablets and memory cards.
The 64 layer devices will be manufactured in New Fab 2 at Yokkaichi Operations, which was opened officially earlier this month. Mass production is scheduled to start in the first half of 2017.