Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corp. have finalized a formal agreement to jointly invest in the first phase of the Fab7 (Y7) manufacturing facility at Kioxia’s industry-leading Yokkaichi Plant in the Mie Prefecture of Japan. With construction of the first phase of Y7 completed, the joint-venture investment will enable initial production output beginning in the fall of this year. This marks another important milestone in the 20-year strategic joint-venture partnership between the two companies.

“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. “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.”

“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. “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.”

This joint-venture investment adds a sixth flash memory manufacturing facility to the Yokkaichi Plant, enhancing its position as the world's largest flash memory manufacturing site. The first phase of the Y7 facility will produce 3D flash memory including 112- and 162-layer and future nodes.

Kioxia and Western Digital will continue to maximize synergies through joint development of 3D flash memory and joint investment in line with market trends to strengthen their respective competitiveness and extend their leadership in the memory space.