SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, has developed its most advanced NAND flash chip made up of 238 layers of memory cells for use in PC storage devices and later smartphones and servers.
South Korea-based SK Hynix described it as the industry’s highest NAND flash chip and it follows U.S. rival Micron Technology saying last week it had begun shipping a 232-layer NAND chip.
SK Hynix said the 238-layer chip is the smallest NAND flash chip in size, boasts 50 percent improvement in data transfer speed over previous generation chips and power efficiency as well, as it cuts the volume of energy consumed for data reading by 21 percent.
The company plans to start mass production of the chip in the first half of 2023.
SK Hynix recently said that it would review next year’s investment plan while monitoring product inventory levels in the second half of the year.
The company unveiled development of the latest product at the Flash Memory Summit 20222 in Santa Clara.
“SK Hynix secured global top-tier competitiveness in perspective of cost, performance and quality by introducing the 238-layer product based on its 4D NAND technologies,” said Jungdal Choi, Head of NAND Development at SK Hynix in his keynote speech during the event. “We will continue innovations to find breakthroughs in technological challenges.”
SK Hynix and Solidigm, the new name of Intel’s NAND business which SK acquired, hold a combined 18 percent share of the NAND flash market, behind Samsung Electronics with 35.3 percent and Kioxia with 18.9 percent, according to first-quarter data from TrendForce.
SK Hynix, South Korea’s second-largest chipmaker, has completed the $492 million acquisition of local chip contract manufacturer Key Foundry.
SK Hynix has completed the official acquisition process of the 8-inch wafer foundry manufacturer from Magnus Investment Partners, a private equity fund, under a 100 percent stake-purchase deal signed in October of last year.
SK Hynix reported revenues of 13.81 trillion won, operating profit of 4.19 trillion won (with operating margin of 30 percent), and net income of 2.88 trillion (with net income margin 21 percent) in the second quarter of 2022.
