Kioxia Corporation announced that in late January, contamination of the material used in its manufacturing processes is suspected to have occurred at its Yokkaichi Plant in Mie prefecture and its Kitakami Plant in Iwate prefecture, partially affecting production of its three-dimensional (3D) flash memory BiCS FLASHTM at both plants.

Kioxia is implementing the necessary measures to restore the facilities to normal operational status as quickly as possible. The company does not anticipate that shipment of its conventional 2D NAND flash memory will be affected, and will continue to make every effort to minimize the impact on customers.

According to report, it is estimated that 6.5exabyte (approximately 6,500M GB) will be affected, of which the damaged part accounts for 13% of the group's production capacity in the first quarter of this year and 3% of the total production capacity for the year.

Since the combined market share of Western Digital and Kioxia in the third quarter of last year was 32.5%, the market research firm TrendForce estimated that the price of NAND Flash may increase by 5-10% in the second quarter.