Factories Just Ruined 16 Billion Gigabytes of Flash Storage

Smartphone users and camera lovers take note: the flash memory chips that store content on your devices are about to get more expensive following a major production snafu.

Western Digital—a San Jose, California-based manufacturer of solid-state storage devices—and its Japanese partner, Kioxia, have reported that contamination at two of their factories has ruined materials used for creating flash memory chips, a type of memory that can be electrically erased and rewritten. The companies work together as one of the largest producers in the world of these chips, primarily used in standalone camera memory cards, phones, and computers.

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Kioxia reported that two plants in Yokkaichi and Kitakami have temporarily suspended some operations. Neither Western Digital nor Kioxia have released information about the cause of the contamination or when they expect their plants to resume normal production. For context, factories usually take about three months to create chips out of silicon disks. Popular Mechanics has reached out to both companies for more information. We’ll update this story as we learn more.

The news out of Japan is a new blow for the existing semiconductor chip shortage that’s become prevalent during the pandemic. Production and delivery of these chips—essential to mobile phones, computers, electric vehicles, and scientific instruments—has slowed down due to a variety of factors, including COVID-19-related shutdowns, as well as factory fires, winter storms, and energy shortages, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

All of that is bad news for the price of flash memory, industry analyst Hideki Yasuda told Bloomberg. This type of memory chip, called a NAND flash chip, is used in a variety of devices, including digital cameras, USB flash drives, gaming consoles, and mobile phones. So, it’s likely that those industries may experience delays in production. It’s not clear how much more expensive your flash memory will be, though analysts are keeping a close eye on the market.

Those in the video production business—especially users of gear that require high-speed cards for 8K, RAW, or high-frame-rate recording—could be particularly affected. The contamination hit production of Kioxia’s 3D flash memory, BiCS FLASHTM, the company posted on its website. 3D flash modules provide faster storage media for high-quality recording capability.

Production in the plants will drop by about ten percent, or about 16 exabytes (one exabyte is one billion gigabytes), after the late January incident. That equates to about ten percent of the total market consumption in a typical quarter, Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers told Bloomberg.

In the interim, other solid-state storage producers will be able to pick up some of the slack, so your creative endeavors don’t have to suffer. These include the South Korean companies Samsung and SK Hynix Inc., as well as U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. Because memory chips must follow an industry standard, consumers can be confident that a device with a chip from Samsung or Kioxia will perform to the same standard.

If you rely on flash memory storage for work or play, and you want to avoid buying flash memory chips while their price is up, you could consider saving your work to the cloud, or temporarily recording at reduced quality. In a pinch, you could also grab an old memory card or computer, erase some of your existing content, and save your new work there—just be careful that you won’t need that content in the future. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

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