Sandisk taped out its first high-bandwidth flash chip and expects samples next year; Meta joined the open-standard group.

Sandisk said it had completed tape-out of its first high-bandwidth flash, or HBF, chip. Tape-out refers here to completion of the chip design for manufacturing, not volume production or customer qualification.

A Sandisk executive said the company expects to provide the first HBF samples for inference equipment to customers next year. The source does not state a firm sampling quarter, production volume, bandwidth, capacity, process node, or commercial-shipment date.

Meta Platforms will join the industry group developing an open HBF standard. The announcement identifies Meta’s participation in standards development but does not disclose a purchase agreement, supply commitment, or deployment volume.