Kioxia to Mass Produce 10th-Gen BiCS Flash Memory

According to Kioxia Corporation, the company will hold a ceremony at its manufacturing facility in Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, to mark the start of mass production for its next-generation memory technology. The plant will manufacture the 10th-generation BiCS FLASH™ 3D NAND flash memory, co-developed with SanDisk.

The production milestone comes as the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape the global memory market. Once regarded as a symbol of Japan's struggling semiconductor industry, Kioxia has experienced a remarkable turnaround. The company's share price has risen more than sevenfold this year, lifting its market valuation above US$250 billion and surpassing that of Toyota Motor.

Formerly known as Toshiba Memory Corporation, Kioxia was acquired in 2018 by a Bain Capital-led consortium for approximately ¥2 trillion (around US$12 billion) after its former parent company, Toshiba, underwent financial restructuring.

As the inventor of NAND flash memory in the 1980s, Kioxia faced significant challenges during the prolonged downturn in memory prices, forcing Bain Capital to delay the company's public listing until late 2024.

In the early stages of the AI boom, DRAM manufacturers were widely viewed as the primary beneficiaries, particularly those producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM), such as SK hynix. However, as AI workloads increasingly shift from model training to inference applications, demand for high-capacity NAND flash storage has accelerated, creating new growth opportunities for NAND manufacturers.

Satoru Oyama, a former advisor to Tokyo Electron (TEL), noted that many semiconductor companies prioritized DRAM development while reducing investment in NAND flash research and production. As a result, the industry was unprepared for the current surge in NAND demand, positioning Kioxia as one of the key beneficiaries of the market shift.

Kazuyoshi Saito, an analyst at IwaiCosmo Securities, said Kioxia currently maintains a two- to four-year competitive advantage in NAND flash performance and power efficiency, supported by advanced technologies such as wafer bonding.

Looking ahead, Kioxia is also evaluating a potential stock split and plans to list American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on a U.S. stock exchange during the early part of its next fiscal year, which begins in April 2027.