Huawei unveils DoB-boarded SSDs in Paris, pitching a domestic workaround to 3D NAND limits

What was shown

It has been reported that Huawei (华为) used the Paris IDI Forum 2026 to showcase a new family of high-capacity SSDs built on its self‑developed Die‑on‑Board (DoB, 板上裸片封装) technology. According to the report, the products already in mass production include 61.44TB and 122.88TB models, with a 245TB variant planned — targeted at AI data centers and hyperscale storage arrays. Blocks&Files is cited as the first outlet to report the demonstration; Huawei said the technology is now deployed across its enterprise storage line, including OceanDisk and Ocean StorPacific systems.

How the technology works — and why it matters

DoB abandons the industry’s conventional “encapsulate then solder” model used by Samsung, Kioxia, Micron and others, and instead mounts naked NAND dies directly onto the SSD PCB. Reportedly this bypasses the physical limits of TSOP/BGA packages — which top out at roughly 16 stacked layers — allowing Huawei to stack up to 36 die layers on‑board and claim about a 33% increase in capacity density per unit area. The approach solves a specific supply problem: blocked from accessing the newest 3D NAND that requires U.S. technology after being placed on the U.S. Entity List, Huawei and its customers must rely on domestically produced NAND such as Yangtze Memory (长江存储), and DoB lets Huawei increase usable capacity without competing in the high‑stack 3D NAND layer race.

Trade‑offs and geopolitical implications

The DoB route is not without technical headaches — heat dissipation and signal integrity are harder when dies are unpackaged and densely tiled — and Huawei reportedly conducted significant engineering work to reach scale. But the move is strategically significant. Can packaging innovation blunt the impact of export controls and a fractured supply chain? For Western readers, the story is a reminder that China’s top tech firms are pushing substrate‑level and systems‑level innovations as an alternative to raw component parity. It also raises competitive questions for international OEMs: Huawei’s array-level capacity figures (for example, multi‑petabyte 2U designs) narrow the practical gap with competitors using high‑stack 3D NAND, even if per‑disk peak capacities still lag in some comparisons.