Contamination leads to the loss of over 6.5 Exabytes of WD and Kioxia 3D NAND

It seems like the tech we love just keeps taking punches to the gut, leading to lower supply or higher prices, or both. Now comes word that Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) and Western Digital have reported that contamination issues have been detected at its NAND production facilities. Western Digital claims that the contamination impacted up to 6.5 exabytes of flash memory. That’s 6.5 million terabytes. The loss of that much NAND will no doubt have a market impact. 

Kioxia’s statement comes via Tom’s Hardware. It says that operations were affected at its Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants. The loss was attributed to a component containing impurities involved in the production of BiCS 3D NAND flash memory. That led to a halt in production.