Industry-leading Capacity with the Highest Density has been realized

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In June 2019, SK hynix succeeded in developing and mass producing the world’s first 128-layer 1Tbit Triple Level Cell (TLC) 4D NAND Flash.

This 128-layer NAND Flash is a TLC, the industry’s main product accounting for more than 85% of the NAND market, and currently holds the industry’s highest capacity of 1Tb. While other companies have developed 1Tb NAND products by building up a 96-layer Quadruple Level Cell (QLC), SK hynix is the first to commercialize the ultra-high-capacity NAND through TLC, achieving better performance and faster processing speed than QLC.

This exclusive SK hynix product also offers record-breaking vertical stacking that amounts to more than 360 billion NAND cells, each of which stores 3 bits per chip. Compared to existing 96-layer 4D NAND chips, a same-sized chip has 30% higher storage capacity, while reducing data read and write speed by 16%. What’s more, it also increases bit productivity per wafer by 40%, and the investment cost that comes with transitioning from 96-Layer to 128-Layer NAND has been reduced by 60% when compared to previous notable technology migrations.

Achieving a Next-gen Upgrade in just Eight Months

Representing a big step forward in the sector, this achievement took only eight months to develop from the time 96-layer TLC 4D NAND, its predecessor, was introduced. In October 2018, SK hynix succeeded in developing the world’s first Charge Trap Flash (CTF) based 4D NAND Flash* platform.

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This innovative platform is how SK hynix significantly reduced the time required for developing new products to just eight months. Maintaining the same platform utilized for the 96-layer 4D NAND process, SK hynix focused on core processes and design technologies essential to increasing layers, resulting in the product’s successful development in such a short time. This will also be used as the platform for 176-layer 4D NAND, which SK Hynix plans to develop further. Considered among SK hynix’s greatest successes where SK hynix secured the fundamental competitiveness in the NAND sector, it goes beyond simply improving the company’s production and investment efficiency.

Highly Applicable as a High-Speed, High-Capacity Storage

Utilizing the 128-layer 4D NAND Flash, SK hynix plans to launch various cutting-edge solutions from 2020.

During the first half of next year, SK hynix plans to develop a next-generation UFS 3.1 product fully compatible with 5G flagship smartphones. When utilizing this product, the number of NANDs required to make 1TB – the largest smartphone capacity to date – products possible, will be cut in half when compared to 512Gb NANDs. This makes for a mobile solution that consumes 20% less power and is 1mm-less thick. If 16 units of the 128-layer 1Tb 4D NAND are formed into one single semiconductor package, even a 5G smartphone of 2TB storage capacity – the largest ever in the industry – will be available.

Furthermore, SK hynix will start mass producing 2TB consumer SSDs with a built-in controller and software, during the first half of next year (2020). Based on its power efficiency, which is 20% more than the previous generation, 16TB and 32TB Non Volatile Memory express (NVMe) SSDs for cutting-edge cloud data centers optimized for AI and big data will also be released next year.

The post Evolution of 4D NAND Flash Opens the Era of Terabyte Smartphones first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

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Seoul, June 26, 2019

SK hynix Inc. (or ‘the Company,’ www.skhynix.com) announced today that it has developed and starts mass-producing the world’s first 128-Layer 1Tb (Terabit) TLC (Triple-Level Cell) 4D NAND Flash, only eight months after the Company announced the 96-Layer 4D NAND Flash last year.

The 128-Layer 1Tb NAND chip offers the industry’s highest vertical stacking with more than 360 billion NAND cells, each of which stores 3 bits, per one chip. To achieve this, SK hynix applied innovative technologies, such as “ultra-homogeneous vertical etching technology,” “high-reliability multi-layer thin-film cell formation technology,” and ultra-fast low-power circuit design, to its own 4D NAND technology.

The new product provides the industry’s highest density of 1Tb for TLC NAND Flash. A number of companies including SK hynix have developed 1Tb QLC (Quad-Level Cell) NAND products, but SK hynix is the first to commercialize the 1Tb TLC NAND Flash. TLC accounts for more than 85% of the NAND Flash market with excellent performance and reliability.

The small chip size, the biggest advantage of the Company’s 4D NAND, allowed SK hynix to realize ultra-high-density NAND Flash memory. The Company announced the innovative 4D NAND in October 2018, which combined 3D CTF (Charge Trap Flash) design with the PUC (Peri. Under Cell) technology.

With the same 4D platform and process optimization, SK hynix was able to reduce the total number of manufacturing processes by 5% while stacking 32 more layers on the existing 96-Layer NAND. As a result, the investment cost for the transition from 96-Layer to 128-Layer NAND has been reduced by 60% compared to the previous technology migration, significantly boosting investment efficiency.

The 128-Layer 1Tb 4D NAND increases bit productivity per wafer by 40% compared to the Company’s 96-Layer 4D NAND.

SK hynix will start shipping the 128-Layer 4D NAND flash from the second half of this year, while continuing to roll out various solutions.

With its four-Plane architecture in a single chip, this product achieved a data transfer rate of 1,400Mbps (Megabits/sec) at 1.2V, enabling high-performance and low-power mobile solutions and enterprise SSD.

SK hynix plans to develop the next-generation UFS 3.1 product in the first half of next year for major flagship smartphone customers. With 128-Layer 1Tb NAND Flash, the number of NAND chips necessary for a 1TB (Terabyte) product, currently the largest capacity for a smart phone, will be reduced by half, compared to 512Gb NAND; it will provide customers with a mobile solution with 20% less power consumption in a 1mm-thin package.

The Company also intends to start mass production of a 2TB client SSD with an in-house controller and software in the first half of next year. 16TB and 32TB Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) SSDs for cloud data centers will be released next year as well.

“SK hynix has secured the fundamental competitiveness of its NAND business with this 128-Layer 4D NAND,” said Executive Vice President Jong Hoon Oh, Head of Global Sales & Marketing. “With this product, with the industry’s best stacking and density, we will provide customers with a variety of solutions at the right time.”

SK hynix is developing the next-generation 176-Layer 4D NAND Flash, and will continue to strengthen the competitiveness of its NAND business through technological advantages.

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Media Contact

SK hynix Inc.
Global Public Relations

Technical Leader (Assistant Manager)
Hyun Kyung Olivia Lee
Phone: +82.31.8093.4771
E-Mail: hyunkyung14.lee@sk.com

Technical Leader (Senior Manager)
Eun Suk Yixi Lee
Phone: +82.31.8093.4790
E-Mail: eunsuk8.lee@sk.com

The post SK hynix Starts Mass-Producing World’s First 128-Layer 4D NAND first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

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Seoul, May 9, 2019

SK hynix Inc. (or ‘the Company’, www.skhynix.com) announced today that it has delivered samples of new 1Tb (Terabit) QLC (Quadruple Level Cell) product to major SSD (Solid State Drive) Controller companies. The Company applied its own QLC technology to its world’s first 96-Layer “CTF (Charge Trap Flash) based 4D (Four-Dimensional) NAND Flash (or 4D NAND).” SK hynix intends to expand its NAND portfolio to 96-layer-based 1Tb QLC products in time for the QLC market opening and strengthen its responsiveness to the next-generation high-density memory market.

QLC stores four bits of data in one NAND cell, allowing higher density compared to TLC (Triple Level Cell) that stores three bits per cell. Using QLC, it is possible to develop high-density products with cost competitiveness.

SK hynix is ​​able to secure the industry’s top-level cost competitiveness through this product, which has reduced the area to less than 90% of the existing 3D-based QLC products.

Using small-sized planes, an advantage of the Company’s 4D NAND, SK hynix also adopted a four-Plane architecture. It increases the number of planes in a single chip from two to four, doubling data bandwidth from 32KB (kilobytes) to 64KB. With this high-performance product that can process up to 64KB of data simultaneously, SK hynix secured both cost and performance competitiveness.

SK hynix said that it has recently sent samples to companies that develop and sell SSD controller and NAND storage device to confirm the product’s performance. “We got QLC engineering samples from SK hynix, and were impressed by its overall performance. The samples meet client SSD product requirements,” said Wallace Kou, Chief Executive Officer of Silicon Motion in Taiwan, a global leader in the field.

Meanwhile, SK hynix is ​​developing its own QLC software algorithm and controller at the same time, and plans to launch solution products in time to meet client demand.

“We plan to launch our own QLC-based SSD from next year when demand for enterprise QLC NAND is expected to become meaningful,” said Vice President Han Joo Na, Head of NAND Development Strategy Office. “In particular, we intend to establish a solid position in the market for high-density eSSD, which is replacing hard disk drives (HDD), with NAND Flash solutions as large as 16TB (terabytes) or larger.”

According to IDC, a market research institute, the proportion of QLC in the NAND Flash market is expected to increase from 3% in 2019 to 22% in 2023. It also forecasts that the eSSD market will grow at an annual average growth rate (CAGR) of 47.9% (unit: GB), rapidly replacing HDD.

Media Contact

SK hynix Inc.
Global Public Relations

Technical Leader (Assistant Manager)
Hyun Kyung Olivia Lee
Phone: +82.31.8093.4771
E-Mail: hyunkyung14.lee@sk.com

Technical Leader (Senior Manager)
Eun Suk Yixi Lee
Phone: +82.31.8093.4790
E-Mail: eunsuk8.lee@sk.com

The post SK hynix Ships Samples of High-Performance 96-Layer 1Tb QLC 4D NAND first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.

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Seoul, November 4, 2018

SK hynix Inc. (or ‘the Company’, www.skhynix.com) launched the world’s first 96-Layer 512Gb (Gigabit) ‘CTF based 4D (Four-Dimensional) NAND Flash (4D NAND)’ based on its TLC (Triple-Level Cell) arrays, using 3D CTF (Charge Trap Flash) design paired with the PUC (Peri. Under Cell) technology. The Company will start the early stage of mass production of the 96-Layer 4D NAND within this year. A single 512Gb NAND Flash chip can represent 64GB (Gigabytes) storage.

SK hynix combined its 3D CTF with PUC for the first time in the industry, which is different from the way of integrating 3D Floating Gate and PUC. As a result, it attained the industry’s finest performance and productivity. The Company named the product ‘CTF-based 4D NAND Flash’ to distinguish it from current 3D NAND Flash technologies.

The 4D NAND chip reduces more than 30% of chip size and increases bit productivity per wafer by 49% compared to the Company’s 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND. Moreover, the product has 30% higher write and 25% higher read performance. Also, its data bandwidth is doubled to the industry’s biggest 64KB (Kilobytes). With the introduction of a multiple gate insulators architecture, its data I/O (Input Output) speed reaches 1,200Mbps (Megabits/sec) at 1.2V (Volt) of operation power.

In August, SK hynix already announced that it would enhance the solution market competence with various 4D NAND applications at FMS(Flash Memory Summit) 2018 held in Santa Clara, CA.

Above all, with the 96-Layer 512Gb 4D NAND, SK hynix will introduce 1TB (Terabyte) client SSDs equipped with the Company’s own controllers and firmware within this year. Plus, the enterprise SSDs will be introduced in the second half of 2019. SK hynix will also respond to the high density mobile market with the introduction of UFS (Universal Flash Storage) 3.0 in the first half of 2019. Furthermore, the Company will roll out ultra-high density 96-Layer 1Tb (Terabit) TLC and QLC (Quad-Level Cell) in 2019.

“This 96-Layer CTF-based 4D NAND, with the industry’s top cost competitiveness and performance, will become a milestone in the Company’s NAND Flash business, as a platform in developing future products,” said vice president J.T. Kim, the Head of NAND Marketing. “The Company plans to start the early stage mass production of it within this year and further expand the production in M15 to actively respond to a variety of clients,” he added.

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Media Contact

SK hynix Inc.
Public Relations

Assistant Manager
Heeyoung Son
Phone: +82.31.8093.4719
E-Mail: heeyoung.son@sk.com

Assistant Manager
Hyun Kyung Olivia Lee
Phone: +82.31.8093.4771
E-Mail: hyunkyung14.lee@sk.com

The post SK hynix Inc. Launches the World’s First ‘CTF-based 4D NAND Flash’ (96-Layer 512Gb TLC) first appeared on SK hynix Newsroom.