| Mass production of 1Tb product, the highest capacity TLC NAND
| Productivity increased by 40%, investment efficiency increased by 60%
| First to conquer the enterprise SSD market SK Hynix announced on the 26th that it has developed and begun mass production of the world's first 128-layer 1Tbit (terabit) TLC (Triple Level Cell) 4D NAND flash.
128-level 1Tb TLC NAND flash The 128-layer NAND being mass-produced this time is a 1Tb product with over 360 billion NAND cells, each of which stores 3 bits, integrated into a single chip. SK Hynix applied technologies such as ▲ultra-uniform vertical etching technology ▲high-reliability multilayer thin-film cell formation technology ▲ultra-high-speed, low-power circuit design to its self-developed 4D NAND technology.
This product has implemented 1Tb with TLC NAND. Previously, many companies including SK Hynix have developed QLC (Quadruple Level Cell) 1Tb products with 96 layers, but SK Hynix was the first to commercialize TLC, its flagship product that accounts for over 85% of the NAND market due to its excellent performance and reliability. It has utilized the characteristic of small chip size, which is the biggest advantage of SK Hynix 4D NAND.
4D NAND is a product that combines CTF (Charge Trap Flash) and PUC (Peri Under Cell) developed by SK Hynix in October of last year. It is a combination of existing 3D CTF technology and PUC technology that layers peripheral circuits under the cell, and can be likened to maximizing space efficiency by restructuring an outdoor apartment parking lot into an underground parking lot.
The 128-layer 1Tb 4D NAND developed this time has a 40% improvement in bit productivity per wafer compared to the existing 96-layer 4D NAND. In addition, compared to the same product without PUC application, bit productivity is more than 15% higher.
NAND technology is becoming increasingly complex, development difficulty is increasing, and the number of production processes is also increasing. This time, SK Hynix developed a product using the same 4D platform and, through process optimization, added 32 cell layers compared to 96 layers while reducing the total number of processes by 5%. This reduced the investment cost for transitioning to 128-layer NAND by 60% compared to the previous generation.
It is significant that the company developed a 128-layer product just 8 months after the 96-layer product by utilizing the same CTF-based 96-layer 4D NAND process platform that was developed for the first time in the world in October of last year.
128-layer 1Tb TLC NAND flash and solution products under development
SK Hynix plans to start selling the 128-layer 4D NAND flash, which it recently began mass production of, in the second half of the year and to launch various solution products in succession.
This product has a structure that places four planes inside a single chip, and implements a data transmission speed of 1400 Mbps at a low voltage of 1.2 V, enabling the implementation of high-performance, low-power mobile solutions and enterprise SSDs.
In the first half of next year, we plan to develop next-generation UFS 3.1 products and supply them to flagship models such as 5G for major smartphone customers.
When implementing a 1TByte (terabyte) product, the largest capacity in the current smartphone industry, with 512Gb NAND, the number of NANDs is reduced by half, power consumption is reduced by 20%, and a mobile solution with a package thickness of 1mm can be provided to customers.
By configuring 16 128-layer 1Tb 4D NANDs into a single semiconductor package, it will also be possible to implement a 5G smartphone with a storage capacity of 2TB.
It also plans to mass-produce a 2TB consumer SSD with its own controller and software in the first half of next year. We also plan to launch 16TB and 32TB NVMe SSDs for advanced cloud data centers optimized for AI and big data environments next year, based on power efficiency improved by 20% compared to the previous generation.
“With the 128-layer 4D NAND, SK Hynix has secured fundamental competitiveness in the NAND business,” said Oh Jong-hoon, Vice President of GSM at SK Hynix. “With this product, which has the industry’s highest stacking and capacity, we will provide customers with a variety of solutions they want in a timely manner.”
Meanwhile, SK Hynix is also developing a next-generation 176-layer 4D NAND product with the same platform as the 128-layer 4D NAND.
