SK hynix Inc. announced that it has started mass production of its 238-layer 4D NAND Flash memory. The company completed product development in August 2022. Also, it is conducting a product compatibility test with a global smartphone manufacturer.

“SK hynix has been developing solution products for smartphones and client SSDs, which are used as PC storage devices. They adopt the 238-layer NAND technology. Mass production of these products has been moved in May,” the company said. “The company has secured world-class competitiveness in price, performance, and quality for both 238-layer NAND and the previous generation 176-layer NAND. Therefore, we expect these products to drive earnings improvement in the second half of the year.”

Specifically, the 238-layer product – the smallest NAND in size – has a 34 percent higher manufacturing efficiency compared to the previous generation of 176-layer. As a result, significant improvement in cost competitiveness is achieved.

Additionally, the new product highlights a data-transfer speed of 2.4Gbps, a 50 percent increase from the previous generation. Also, it showcases approximately a 20 percent increase in read and write speed. The company is thus confident that it can deliver improved performance to smartphone and PC customers using this technology.

The company will secure product compatibility test with the global smartphone manufacturer. Following this step, SK hynix will supply the 238-layer NAND product for smartphones. It will also expand the technology across its product portfolio such as PCIe 5.0* SSDs and high-capacity server SSDs going forward.

“We will continue to overcome NAND technology limitations and increase our competitiveness so that we can achieve a bigger turnaround than anyone else during the upcoming market rebound,” said Jumsoo Kim, Head of S238 NAND at SK hynix.

*PCIe 5.0: PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) is a serial-structured high-speed input/output interface used in the main boards of digital devices, with PCIe 5.0 doubling the data rate to 32GT/s (Gigatransfer per second) from PCIe 4.0