SK Hynix's First Female Research Fellow "This Year is the NAND Upturn... Making It the Year of Business Leap"

'N-S Committee' Research Director Oh Hae-sun Vice President
Role as Control Tower for NAND-Solution Business

"DRAM already shifted to an upturn phase last year. This year, it's NAND's turn."

Oh Hae-soon, Vice President of SK Hynix, expressed her ambition on the 29th in an interview with the company's newsroom to make this year the inaugural year of a leap forward in the NAND business, in line with the recovery of the NAND flash market. She is a NAND expert who was named SK Hynix's first female research fellow in the 2024 executive appointments.

Vice President Oh Hae-soon, SK Hynix's First Female Research Fellow /
[Photo by SK Hynix Newsroom]

Vice President Oh said, "Securing element technologies to overcome stacking limitations while simultaneously developing next-generation high value-added products in a timely manner is an important mission for 2024," adding, "Above all, to improve profitability, we plan to continue research that can reduce trial and error from the development stage."

Focus on Expanding NAND-Solution Synergy This Year

Vice President Oh has been working as a research fellow of the newly established 'N-S Committee' organization since this year to strengthen competitiveness in the NAND and solution businesses. A research fellow is a specialized executive who focuses on innovative technology research based on outstanding technical capabilities.

She currently leads the 'Advanced Process Integration (Advanced PI)' organization and is dedicated to developing next-generation high value-added NAND products. PI is responsible for the entire manufacturing process, from core development to mass production transfer and yield improvement.

Vice President Oh is focusing on research related to mass production success to reduce trial and error throughout the entire process of product development and mass production. This is a very important mission given that mass production competitiveness directly translates to product competitiveness in NAND. She explained, "Having experienced various NAND development stages, my understanding of the missions at each stage has deepened, and I have gained a broader perspective."

Oh Hae-soon, Vice President of SK Hynix / [Photo by SK Hynix Newsroom]

Vice President Oh is a figure who has devoted herself to next-generation NAND platform development since 2007 after working at the Future Technology Research Institute and the DRAM development division. She not only developed the company's first 3D NAND technology and products based on Quad-Level Cell (QLC), a type of flash memory, but also successfully led several projects including 4D NAND mass production.

In 2022, based on her know-how covering both development and mass production, she introduced the ODE (On Die Epm) system for the first time in NAND, which manages mass production defects in advance from the development stage. This system is currently actively used for quality characteristic management and product defect control.

This year, to ensure success in the NAND business, collaboration with solutions, which are storage products, will be increased. Since NAND must store large amounts of data at low cost and high quality, optimization with the solutions that contain it is essential. As the N-S Committee organization plays the role of a control tower for both NAND and solution businesses, Vice President Oh plans to focus on related businesses.

She said, "This year, NAND and solutions will carry out various collaborations within the N-S Committee organization. I will take the lead in actively communicating and cooperating with the solution business division to create synergy, and based on this, make 2024 the inaugural year of a leap forward in the NAND business."

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