SK Hynix Develops World's Tallest 238-Layer 4D NAND...Mass Production Next Year

World's First 238-Stage Development Completed in July, Mass Production in Early Next Year

238-layer 4D NAND developed by SK Hynix

[Asia Economy Reporter Sunmi Park] SK Hynix has succeeded in developing the world's highest 238-layer NAND.

On the 3rd, SK Hynix announced that it has released samples of the 238-layer 512Gb (gigabit) TLC 4D NAND flash to customers and unveiled the new product at the 'Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2022' held in Santa Clara, USA. The company plans to start full-scale mass production in the first half of next year.

This achievement comes just 1 year and 7 months after developing the 176-layer NAND in December 2020, marking success in next-generation technology development. Notably, the 238-layer NAND is significant as it is the highest layer count and also realized as the world's smallest-sized product. Jungdal Choi, Vice President in charge of NAND development at SK Hynix, said, "With the 238-layer developed based on 4D NAND technology, we have secured global top-class competitiveness in terms of cost, performance, and quality," adding, "We will continue to innovate to break through technological limits."

Since the 96-layer NAND developed in 2018, SK Hynix has introduced 4D products that go beyond the existing 3D. 4D has the advantage of reducing cell area per unit compared to 3D while increasing production efficiency.

The 238-layer NAND not only has a higher number of layers but is also manufactured at the world's smallest size, resulting in a 34% increase in productivity compared to the previous generation 176-layer NAND. This is because chips with larger capacity per unit area are produced in greater quantities per wafer. Additionally, the data transfer speed of the 238-layer NAND is 2.4Gb per second, 50% faster than the previous generation. The energy consumption used when the chip reads data has also decreased by 21%, which the company reports as an achievement in reducing power consumption from an ESG perspective.

SK Hynix plans to first supply the 238-layer product for customer SSDs (cSSD) used in PC storage devices and then expand the product application range to high-capacity SSDs for smartphones and servers. Furthermore, next year, the company plans to introduce a 1Tb product with double the capacity of the current 512Gb.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.