SK hynix Inc. has started mass production of the world’s first triple level cell¹-based 321-high 4D NAND Flash with 1Tb capacity.

SK hynix was the first supplier of the NAND with more than 300 layers through a technological breakthrough for stacking. This follows its previous record as the industry’s first provider of the world’s highest 238-layer NAND since June last year. Moreover, the company plans to provide the 321-high products to customers from the first half of next year.

Stacking more than 300 layers came into reality as the company successfully adopted the “3 plugs”² process technology. Particularly, the process is known for an excellent production efficiency. It electrically connects three plugs through an optimized follow-up process after three times of plug processes are finished. For the process, SK hynix developed a low-stress³ material, while introducing the technology that automatically corrects alignments among the plugs.

Particularly, it adopts the same development platform from the 238-high NAND on the 321-high product. Moreover, the company could improve the productivity by 59% than previous generation by minimizing any impacts from a process switch. Also, the latest product comes with an improvement of 12% in data transfer speed and 13% in reading performance than the previous generation. It also enhances data reading power efficiency by more than 10%.

SK hynix plans to steadily expand the use of the 321-high products by providing them to the nascent AI applications, which require low power and high performance.

Jungdal Choi, Head of NAND Development at SK hynix, said the latest development brings the company a step closer to the leadership of the AI storage market. Particularly, it is represented by SSD for AI data centers and on-device AI. “SK hynix is on track to advancing to the Full Stack AI Memory Provider by adding a perfect portfolio in the ultra-high performance NAND space on top of the DRAM business led by HBM.”

¹NAND Flash products are categorized into single-, multi-, triple-, quadruple-, and penta-level cells, depending on the number of the information in the format of bit unit is stored in a cell. A bigger number of information stored means more data can be stored in the same space.

² Plug: a vertical hole through layers of substrates aimed at creating cells at once

³ Low Stress: Preventing wafer warpage by changing the material into the plugs

-21 November 2024-