• Industry’s first 321-high NAND of 1Tb developed for supply in 1H25
• “Three Plugs” process technology leads to technological breakthrough for stacking, improves speed, power efficiency
• Company on track to becoming “Full Stack AI Memory Provider” with enhanced competitiveness in AI storage

Seoul, November 21, 2024

SK hynix Inc. (or “the company”, www.skhynix.com) announced today that it has started mass production of the world’s first triple level cell¹-based 321-high 4D NAND Flash with 1Tb capacity.

¹NAND Flash products are categorized into single-, multi-, triple-, quadruple-, and penta-level cells, depending on the number of the information in the format of bit unit is stored in a cell. A bigger number of information stored means more data can be stored in the same space.

Following its previous record as the industry’s first provider of the world’s highest 238-layer NAND since June last year, SK hynix has become the world’s first supplier of the NAND with more than 300 layers by finding a technological breakthrough for stacking. The company plans to provide the 321-high products to customers from the first half of next year.

Stacking more than 300 layers came into reality as the company successfully adopted the “3 plugs²” process technology. Known for an excellent production efficiency, the process electrically connects three plugs through an optimized follow-up process after three times of plug processes are finished. For the process, SK hynix developed a low-stress³ material, while introducing the technology that automatically corrects alignments among the plugs.

²Plug: a vertical hole through layers of substrates aimed at creating cells at once
³Low Stress: Preventing wafer warpage by changing the material into the plugs

With the adoption of the same development platform from the 238-high NAND on the 321-high product, the company could also improve the productivity by 59%, compared with the previous generation, by minimizing any impacts from a process switch.

The latest product comes with an improvement of 12% in data transfer speed and 13% in reading performance, compared with the previous generation. It also enhances data reading power efficiency by more than 10%.

SK hynix plans to steadily expand the use of the 321-high products by providing them to the nascent AI applications, which require low power and high performance.

Jungdal Choi, Head of NAND Development at SK hynix, said that the latest development brings the company a step closer to the leadership of the AI storage market represented by SSD for AI data centers and on-device AI. “SK hynix is on track to advancing to the Full Stack AI Memory Provider by adding a perfect portfolio in the ultra-high performance NAND space on top of the DRAM business led by HBM.”

About SK hynix Inc.

SK hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is the world’s top tier semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory chips (“DRAM”), flash memory chips (“NAND flash”) and CMOS Image Sensors (“CIS”) for a wide range of distinguished customers globally. The Company’s shares are traded on the Korea Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Further information about SK hynix is available at www.skhynix.com, news.skhynix.com.

Media Contact

SK hynix Inc.
Global Public Relations

Technical Leader
Kanga Kong
E-Mail: global_newsroom@skhynix.com

Technical Leader
Sooyeon Lee
E-Mail: global_newsroom@skhynix.com

The post SK hynix Starts Mass Production of World’s First 321-High NAND first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

Figure 1. SK hynix’s booth at FMS 2023 featured some of the company’s latest products and technologies

As the world’s largest memory and storage trade show, the annual Flash Memory Summit (FMS) is renowned for exhibiting revolutionary high-speed memory and SSD products. At FMS 2023 held August 8^th-10^th at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California, SK hynix continued this legacy of innovation by showcasing groundbreaking memory solutions under the slogan “United Through Technology”. During the event, executives from SK hynix gave a keynote speech to share the companies’ developments in the memory sector.

Leading 4D NAND Solutions Key to the Multimodal AI Era

Figure 2. SK hynix’s EVP and Head of NAND development Jungdal Choi and EVP and Head of Solution Development Hyun Ahn during their keynote speech

On August 8^th, SK hynix’s EVP and Head of NAND development Jungdal Choi along with EVP and Head of Solution Development Hyun Ahn gave a keynote speech titled “Industry-Leading 4D NAND Technology and Solutions Enabling the Multimodal AI¹ Era”.

¹Multimodal AI: Combines various data types (image, text, speech, numerical data, etc.) with multiple intelligence processing algorithms to achieve higher performance levels.

Choi revealed that the company is currently developing the world’s first 321-layer NAND product, the fifth generation of 4D NAND. Choi said that the new product, which is the first in the industry to exceed 300 layers, is set to help the company solidify its technological leadership in NAND. Meanwhile, Ahn introduced the company’s ultra-high performance UFS 4.0 and PCIe 5^th generation (Gen5) SSD products for use in data centers and PCs. The continuous development of SSD products is essential as they are set to become an essential storage solution for application with multimodal AI, which analyzes and calculates vast amounts of data on various platforms. The pair concluded by stating that SK hynix is committed to supporting multimodal AI and other advanced technologies by developing next-generation PCIe Gen6 SSDs and UFS 5.0 memory-based products.

Breaking Barriers: Unveiling Pioneering 4D NAND & SSD Solutions

Figure 3. SK hynix’s product line-up, including its 4D NAND solutions, were on display

SK hynix is continually looking to advance its 4D NAND technology in terms of performance and reliability. The company’s development of the industry’s first 96-layer 4D NAND based on charge trap flash² (CTF) in 2018 became a launchpad for further innovations, leading to the development of its 238-layer 4D NAND four years later in another industry first. Continuing this line of industry firsts, SK hynix showcased samples of its 321-layer 1 Tb 4D NAND, which offers a 59% improvement in productivity compared with the previous generation 238-layer, 512 Gb NAND chips. This improvement was realized by technological developments that enabled the stacking of more cells and a larger storage capacity on a single chip, thereby increasing the total capacity of a single wafer.

The groundbreaking 321-layer NAND product was later presented at SK hynix’s booth along with other NAND solutions, including the company’s PCle³ Gen5 enterprise SSD (eSSD) called PS1030 which utilizes V7 NAND. The PS1030, which was applied to a supermicro server for the demonstration, delivers the fastest sequential read speed in the industry—14,800 MB/s. It also offers a random read performance of 3,300 kIOPS⁴, highlighting its specifications as a high-performance eSSD.

²Charge trap flash (CTF): Unlike floating gate, which stores electric charges in conductors, CTF stores electric charges in insulators, which eliminates interference between cells, improving read and write performance while reducing cell area per unit compared to floating gate technology.

³Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCle): A serial-structured, high-speed input/output interface used on the motherboard of digital devices.

⁴Thousand Input/Output Operations Per Second (kIOPS): A measure of how many read and write operations a storage device can perform in a second.

Visitors to the SK hynix booth could also see another one of the company’s SSDs, the PCIe Gen4 PC811.  Applied to a PC for the demonstration, the PC811 is SK hynix’s first V8 NAND-based mainstream client SSD (cSSD). Other SSDs on show included its high-speed Platinum P41, ultra-low power Gold P31, and the company’s first portable SSD for consumers, SK hynix Beetle X31.

Unleashing the Power of HPC With KV-CSD

Figure 4. SK hynix’s Woosuk Chung, team leader for the Computational Storage department, held a session on KV-CSD, which was also displayed at the company’s booth

SK hynix also held the second demonstrations of its pioneering Key Value Store Computational Storage Device (KV-CSD) following on from its debut at last year’s FMS. Co-developed with U.S.-based Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the KV-CSD is a next-generation intelligent storage product which improves write and read capabilities for high performance computing (HPC).

The impact of the KV-CSD was discussed in a session on August 10^th by SK hynix’s Woosuk Chung, team leader for the Computational Storage department. Titled “Architecture of a Query Accelerating KV-CSD in a HPC System”, the talk revealed how the new KV-CSD overcomes the limitations of software key-value stores.

High-Performance Mobile and Automotive Solutions

Figure 5. SK hynix’s mobile and automotive solutions

SK hynix also exhibited its technologies for the mobile and automotive sectors at FMS 2023. The company’s line-up of V7 512 Gb universal flash storage⁵ (UFS) products was on display, including those based on UFS 2.2, UFS 3.1, and UFS 4.0—the latest specification which offers enhanced bandwidth speed and efficiency. Additionally, the company’s universal multichip package⁶ (uMCP), which combines its mobile DRAM LPDDR and UFS, was also presented at the booth.

Moving to solutions for the automotive market, SK hynix’s LPDDR5X mobile DRAM and HBM2E DRAM were among the products displayed as they are essential components of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)⁷. The HBM2E highlights SK hynix’s strength in the automotive sector as it is the only company to develop HBM products specifically for the industry. As well as ADAS, SK hynix’s automotive solutions support other functions. For example, its eMMC 5.1 embedded multimedia card is utilized for in-car connectivity, while its UFS 3.1-based and SSD products are applied for in-vehicle infotainment and storage, respectively.

⁵Universal Flash Storage (UFS): A breakthrough type of flash memory that can simultaneously read and write data. Due to its low-power consumption, high-performance and reliability, UFS is widely applied in mobile devices.

⁶Universal multichip package (uMCP): A multi-chip package that combines DRAM and NAND flash into one product.

⁷Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS): A system that utilizes various technologies to help drivers in routine navigation and parking without fully automating the process.

Never Standing Still

SK hynix always has one eye on the future, and this was exemplified during its successful time at FMS 2023. Despite already offering a range of industry-leading solutions, the company will not rest on its laurels as it aims to further improve it line-up of NAND and other high-performance memories in the future.

The post FMS 2023: SK hynix Showcases World’s First 321-Layer NAND Samples & Storage Solutions first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

• SK hynix unveils development progress of world’s first NAND with more than 300 layers at FMS 2023
• Next-generation NAND solutions such as PCIe 5th Gen, UFS 4.0 also unveiled
• “Innovation to continue for development of high-performance NAND for AI era”

Seoul, August 9, 2023

SK hynix Inc. (or “the company”, www.skhynix.com) showcased today the sample of the 321-layer 4D NAND, making public the progress on its development of the industry’s first NAND with more than 300 layers.

The company gave a presentation on the progress on the development of its 321-layer 1Tb TLC¹ 4D NAND Flash and displayed the samples at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2023² taking place Aug. 8-10 in Santa Clara.

¹Triple Level Cell (TLC): NAND Flash products are categorized into single, multi, triple, quadruple and penta level cells depending on the number of information (in bit unit) contained in a single cell. That a cell contains more information means more data can be stored within the same extent of area.

²Flash Memory Summit (FMS): the biggest annual conference for NAND Flash industry

SK hynix is the first in the industry to unveil the progress on the development of a NAND with more than 300 layers in detail. The company plans to raise the level of completion of the 321-layer product and start mass production from the first half of 2025.

The company said its technological competitiveness accumulated from the success of the world’s highest 238-layer NAND, already in mass production, paved the way for a smooth progress for the development of the 321-layer product. “With another breakthrough to address stacking limitations, SK hynix will open the era of NAND with more than 300 layers and lead the market.”

The 321-layer 1Tb TLC NAND comes with a 59% improvement in productivity, compared with the earlier generation of 238-layer 512Gb, thanks to the technology development that enabled stacking of more cells and larger storage capacity on a single chip, meaning the total capacity that can be produced on a single wafer increased.

Since the introduction of ChatGPT that accelerated the growth of the generative AI market, demand for high-performance and high-capacity memory products that can process more data at a faster pace is growing rapidly.

Accordingly, at the FMS, SK hynix also introduced next-generation NAND solutions optimized for such AI demand, including the enterprise SSD adopting the PCIe Gen5 interface and UFS 4.0.

The company expects these products to achieve industry-leading performance to fully meet the needs of the customers with a focus on high performance.

SK hynix also announced that it has started development of the next-generation PCIe Gen6 and UFS 5.0 with the improved technology for solution development that it acquired through these products and expressed its commitment to leading the industry trend.

Jungdal Choi, Head of NAND Development, said during a keynote speech that the company expects the ongoing development of the 321-layer product, the fifth generation of the 4D NAND, to help the company solidify its technological leadership in the NAND space. “With timely introduction of the high-performance and high-capacity NAND, we will strive to meet the requirements of the AI era and continue to lead innovation.”

About SK hynix Inc.

SK hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is the world’s top tier semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory chips (“DRAM”), flash memory chips (“NAND flash”) and CMOS Image Sensors (“CIS”) for a wide range of distinguished customers globally. The Company’s shares are traded on the Korea Exchange, and the Global Depository shares are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Further information about SK hynix is available at www.skhynix.com, news.skhynix.com.

Media Contact

SK hynix Inc.
Global Public Relations

Technical Leader
Kanga Kong
E-Mail: global_newsroom@skhynix.com

Technical Leader
Joori Roh
E-Mail: global_newsroom@skhynix.com

The post SK hynix Showcases Samples of World’s First 321-Layer NAND first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.