Last October, the US Department of Commerce imposed semiconductor restrictions on Chinese imports of equipment for processes of 18 nm and below. SK hynix's Wuxi fab was granted a one-year production license, but geopolitical risks and weak demand prompted the company to reduce wafer starts by about 30% per month in 2Q23, according to TrendForce's latest research.

TrendForce reports that SK hynix had planned to transition its Wuxi fab's mainstream process from 1Y nm to 1Z nm, decreasing the output of legacy processes. However, due to limitations imposed by the US ban, the company instead opted to increase the share of its 21 nm production lines, focus-ing on DDR3 and DDR4 4Gb products. SK hynix's long-term strategy involves shifting its capacity expansion back to South Korea, while the Wuxi fab caters to domestic demand in China and the legacy-process consumer DRAM market.

SK hynix Inc. (or "the company", www.skhynix.com) today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023. The company recorded revenues of 5.088 trillion won, operating loss of 3.402 trillion won (with operating margin of negative 67%), and net loss of 2.586 trillion won (with net profit margin of negative 51%) in the first quarter of 2023.

"As the memory chip downturn continued through the first quarter, the company posted a sequential drop in revenues and widened operating loss on sluggish demand and falling products prices," SK hynix said. "But we expect revenues to rebound in the second quarter after bottoming out in the first, driven by a gradual increase in sales volume."

Earlier this month, it was reported that the Chinese Government could retaliate to the U.S. ban on YMTC by banning Idaho-based Micron Technology from selling memory products to Chinese firms—something that can severely hit Micron's bottom-line if you consider the various smartphone brands and PC OEMs based out of China, not to mention foreign companies that manufacture the entire spectrum of consumer electronics in China.

While Beijing is still making up its mind on whether go ahead with this ban, Washington threw a wrench in the works, by "urging" South Korean memory giants Samsung and SK Hynix not to fill the shortfall in supply left by a ban on Micron. It stands to reason that a similar request has been made with Kioxia, which is majority-owned by Bain Capital. Therefore, if China were to ban Micron, it would have to do so only after scaling up production at YMTC to make up for the supply, or end up with a chip shortage that can hurt Chinese ICT and PC firms in the immediate aftermath of the ban.

SK hynix announced today it has become the industry's first to develop 12-layer HBM3 product with a 24 gigabyte (GB) memory capacity, currently the largest in the industry, and said customers' performance evaluation of samples is underway. HBM (High Bandwidth Memory): A high-value, high-performance memory that vertically interconnects multiple DRAM chips and dramatically increases data processing speed in comparison to traditional DRAM products. HBM3 is the 4th generation product, succeeding the previous generations HBM, HBM2 and HBM2E

"The company succeeded in developing the 24 GB package product that increased the memory capacity by 50% from the previous product, following the mass production of the world's first HBM3 in June last year," SK hynix said. "We will be able to supply the new products to the market from the second half of the year, in line with growing demand for premium memory products driven by the AI-powered chatbot industry." SK hynix engineers improved process efficiency and performance stability by applying Advanced Mass Reflow Molded Underfill (MR-MUF)# technology to the latest product, while Through Silicon Via (TSV)## technology reduced the thickness of a single DRAM chip by 40%, achieving the same stack height level as the 16 GB product.

Thermaltake today introduced its ToughRAM D5 RGB series DDR5 memory in multiple color options that it had shown off in its 2023 CES booth. Today's release sees the memory modules in six color variants—Turquoise, Racing Green, Metallic Gold, Racing Red, White, and Black. These come with the distinctive Thermaltake "TT" design, and are capped with silicone diffusers for the 8 RGB LEDs that you can control using the TT RGB Plus 2.0 app.

Thermaltake sells these only in 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) kits, rated for DDR5-5600, 36-36-36-76 timings, and 1.1 V to 1.25 V DRAM voltage. These are based on SK Hynix M-die DRAM chips in single-rank 8x 16 Gbit configuration. What's interesting is that even to achieve its rather modest DDR5-5600 speed, Thermaltake included both Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO profiles. The company didn't reveal pricing.

A strong growth in AI server shipments has driven demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM). TrendForce reports that the top three HBM suppliers in 2022 were SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron, with 50%, 40%, and 10% market share, respectively. Furthermore, the specifications of high-end AI GPUs designed for deep learning have led to HBM product iteration. To prepare for the launch of NVIDIA H100 and AMD MI300 in 2H23, all three major suppliers are planning for the mass production of HBM3 products. At present, SK hynix is the only supplier that mass produces HBM3 products, and as a result, is projected to increase its market share to 53% as more customers adopt HBM3. Samsung and Micron are expected to start mass production sometime towards the end of this year or early 2024, with HBM market shares of 38% and 9%, respectively.

AI server shipment volume expected to increase by 15.4% in 2023
NVIDIA's DM/ML AI servers are equipped with an average of four or eight high-end graphics cards and two mainstream x86 server CPUs. These servers are primarily used by top US cloud services providers such as Google, AWS, Meta, and Microsoft. TrendForce analysis indicates that the shipment volume of servers with high-end GPGPUs is expected to increase by around 9% in 2022, with approximately 80% of these shipments concentrated in eight major cloud service providers in China and the US. Looking ahead to 2023, Microsoft, Meta, Baidu, and ByteDance will launch generative AI products and services, further boosting AI server shipments. It is estimated that the shipment volume of AI servers will increase by 15.4% this year, and a 12.2% CAGR for AI server shipments is projected from 2023 to 2027.

TrendForce reports that the US Department of Commerce recently released details regarding its CHIPS and Science Act, which stipulates that beneficiaries of the act will be restricted in their investment activities—for more advanced and mature processes—in China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia for the next ten years. The scope of restrictions in this updated legislation will be far more extensive than the previous export ban, further reducing the willingness of multinational semiconductor companies to invest in China for the next decade.

CHIPS Act will mainly impact TSMC; and as the decoupling of the supply chain continues, VIS and PSMC capture orders rerouted from Chinese foundries
In recent years, the US has banned semiconductor exports and passed the CHIPS Act, all to ensure supply chains decoupling from China. Initially, bans on exports were primarily focused on non-planar transistor architecture (16/14 nm and more advanced processes). However, Japan and the Netherlands have also announced that they intend to join the sanctions, which means key DUV immersion systems, used for producing both sub-16 nm and 40/28 nm mature processes, are likely to be included within the scope of the ban as well. These developments, in conjunction with the CHIPS Act, mean that the expansion of both Chinese foundries and multinational foundries in China will be suppressed to varying degrees—regardless of whether they are advanced or mature processes.

Semiconductor manufacturers worldwide are forecast to increase 300 mm fab capacity to an all-time high of 9.6 million wafers per month (wpm) in 2026, SEMI announced today in its 300 mm Fab Outlook to 2026 report. After strong growth in 2021 and 2022, the 300 mm capacity expansion is expected to slow this year due to soft demand for memory and logic devices.

"While the pace of the global 300 mm fab capacity expansion is moderating, the industry remains squarely focused on growing capacity to meet robust secular demand for semiconductors," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI President and CEO. "The foundry, memory and power sectors will be major drivers of the new record capacity increase expected in 2026."

The homebrew and modification community has delved deeper into the recent bout of bricked Nintendo Wii U consoles, unlucky owners are seeing their systems throwing up error codes that indicate an internal memory failure. As covered on TPU almost two weeks ago, it was speculated that leaving a Wii U in a long-term state of unuse was a root cause of the problem. It is now theorized that a simple choice of memory chip is the real issue behind the corruptions, and not a case of leaving your unplugged Wii U stashed in a box somewhere.

An online database has been established on hackmd.io, and a member is collecting hard data from Wii U owners across various online communities and sources. Early indications show that consoles fitted with a Hynix eMMC are leading the pack in terms of number of system failures, Samsung-equipped models are placed in a distant second place, and the Toshiba variant is reported as having zero problems.

SK Hynix representatives unveiled the company's latest breakthrough in 3D NAND development at the ISSCC 2023 conference. Details of a new flash memory prototype featuring over 300 layers were revealed, and the company stated that a team of 35 engineers had contributed to the presentation material. In order to highlight the boost in performance offered by the prototype's improvements, it was compared to SK Hynix's previous record holding seventh-generation 238-layer 3D NAND. The new eighth-generation 3D NAND posted bandwidth figures with a maximum of 194 MB/s, which contrasts favorably with the older model's rate of 164 MB/s, representing an 18% increase in performance.

Recording density also benefits from the 300+ active layer design, with SK Hynix mentioning a 1 Tb (128 GB) capacity with triple level cells and a bit density of over 20 GB/mm^2. The chip features a 16 KB page size, four planes and a 2400 MT/s interface. The increase in density will result in a lower per-Tb cost during the manufacturing process. It is hoped that the end consumer will ultimately benefit from the boost in performance and capacity.

SK Hynix ran into issues earlier this month at one of its DRAM production fabs, due to impurities in zirconium high-k materials used in the production. The materials were supplied by SK Trichem and due to the impurities, the equipment at SK Hynix fab ended up leading to increased pressure in some of the manufacturing equipment and forced the production to be shut down. All the equipment at the fab had to be cleaned and some even replaced due to the impurities in the material.

The zirconium high-k material is deposited at the atomic level, atop the capacitors of the DRAM, as a precursor. Any impurities in such a material would lead to failed DRAM chips, but apparently there was no damage to the DRAM wafer production in this case, according to SK Hynix. The company will be ordering replacement material from two other suppliers for the time being and SK Trichem should be supplying a fresh batch by the end of the month.

SK hynix Inc. (or "the company") reported today financial results for 2022 ended on December 31. The company recorded revenues of 44.648 trillion won, an operating profit of 7.007 trillion won and a net income of 2.439 trillion won. Operating and net profit margin for the full year was 16% and 5%, respectively. "Revenues continued to grow last year, but the operating profit decreased compared with a year earlier as the industry entered into a downturn from the second half," the company said. "With uncertainties still lingering, we will continue to reduce investments and costs, while trying to minimize the impact of the downturn by prioritizing markets with high growth potential."

In 2022, SK hynix increased high-capacity DRAM shipments for server/PC markets, while boosting sales of DDR5 and HBM - of which products that the company has a solid market leadership - to customers in the growing markets of AI, Big Data, and cloud computing. Particularly, revenues for the data center SSD more than quadrupled compared with a year earlier.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has developed the world's fastest mobile DRAM 'LPDDR5T (Low Power Double Data Rate 5 Turbo)' and provided sample products to customers. The new product, LPDDR5T, operates at a data rate of 9.6 gigabits per second (Gbps), 13% faster than the previous generation LPDDR5X unveiled in November 2022. To highlight the maximum speed the product features, SK hynix added 'Turbo' at the end of the standard name LPDDR5.

LPDDR5T, which operates in the ultra-low voltage range of 1.01 to 1.12 V set by the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council), is a product that not only features utmost speed but ultra-low power consumption. "The company pushed the technology to new limits in just two months after LPDDR5X, mobile DRAM with 8.5 Gbps specification, was introduced to the market in November 2022," SK hynix said. "We will solidify our leadership in the mobile DRAM market by providing products of various storage capacities that meet customers' needs."

TrendForce's latest analysis of the DRAM market finds that the inventory pressure on suppliers remain significant due to the persistently weak demand for consumer electronics. Among the top three DRAM suppliers, only Samsung has seen a slight drop in inventory level thanks to its highly competitive pricing strategy. To prevent DRAM prices as a whole from making another sharp dive, a few suppliers such as Micron have been cutting production. Therefore, the QoQ decline in DRAM prices are projected to shrink to around 13~18% for 1Q23. However, the slump will have yet to reach the bottom at that time. Regarding the QoQ changes in the prices of the major categories of DRAM products for 1Q23, PC DRAM and server DRAM are projected to again register a drop that is near 20%. Conversely, mobile DRAM will experience the smallest price decline because its profit margin is ready the thinnest.

Netac, a Chinese maker of memory and storage devices, has developed DDR5 memory modules with impressive speeds. The company has used SK Hynix A-type dies to create DDR5 memory with up to 8000 MT/s rates. With incredible speeds comes significant latency, whereas the DDR5-8000 memory kit comes with a CAS latency of 38-48-48-128. Netac has determined that these DRAM modules require as much as 1.5 Volts to power it. The base kit starts at 6000 MT/s, with 6200/6600/7200/7600 and 8000 MT/s variations mentioned above. Available in silver and black, these memory modules are equipped with an ARGB strip at the top that works with every RGB control software of motherboard makers.

You can check out the images and specification table below.

SK hynix has developed LPDDR5X (Low Power Double Data Rate 5X), the world's first-ever mobile DRAM with an integrated HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) process, which was just recently introduced to the market. The LPDDR5X boasts the industry's highest energy-efficiency as SK hynix succeeded in reducing power consumption by 25% compared to the previous generation and operates in the ultra-low voltage range of 1.01 V to 1.12 V set by the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council).
For the LPDDR, which is also called a mobile DRAM, having a low power consumption is its greatest asset, just as its standard name—LP (Low Power)—suggests. As power is limited in mobile devices, it's necessary to reduce power consumption as much as possible to extend the usage time.

This is why lowering power consumption is just as important as increasing operating speed. LPDDR5X was the first among mobile DRAMs to integrate the HKMG process and see improved performance and a reduction in power consumption, essentially killing two birds with one stone. As the power consumption of DRAM gets lowered by LPDDR5X, mobile devices can be used for a longer time with a single charge. The reduction in power consumption of such products can subsequently lead to a reduction in the power used by consumers, which is in line with the value of SK hynix's ESG-centered business management.

SK hynix Inc. reported today revenues of 10.98 trillion won, operating profit of 1.66 trillion won (with OP margin of 15%), and net income of 1.1 trillion won (with net income margin 10%) in the third quarter of 2022. Sales and operating profits decreased 20.5%, 60.5% respectively QoQ. SK hynix analyzed that revenues fell QoQ as both sales volume and price decreased due to sluggish demand for DRAM and NAND products amid worsening macroeconomic environment worldwide. In addition, SK hynix explained that despite the company improved cost competitiveness by increasing the sales proportion and yield of the latest 1anm DRAM and 176-layer 4D NAND, operating profit also decreased due to greater price drop than cost reduction.

SK hynix diagnosed that the semiconductor memory industry is facing an unprecedented deterioration in market conditions as uncertainties in the business environment continued. The deterioration occurred as the shipments of PCs and smartphone manufacturers, which are major buyers of memory chips, have decreased.

SK Hynix at the 2022 Intel InnovatiON event, showed off some unconventional server memory capacities. The company presented DDR5 RDIMMs in 48 GB and 96 GB densities, besides the usual 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB ones. These are being offered in data-rates of DDR5-5600 and DDR5-6400, which indicates that DDR5-5600 (JEDEC-standard) could be the standard memory speed supported by Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors, with some (or all) models also supporting DDR5-6400. These are not XMP or overclocking SPDs, but JEDEC-standard ones that the processors can automatically train to. The flagship product among SK Hynix's booth would have to be a mammoth 256 GB DDR5-5600 RDIMM, which should enable servers with up to 4 TB of memory per socket (@2 RDIMMs per channel).

The first batch of PCIe 5.0 SSDs are all likely to be based on Phison's PS5026-E26 controller, which offers eight NAND channels, capable of supporting NAND speeds of up to 2400 MT/s. Phison's own figures for the controller are 13 GB/s writes and 12 GB/s reads, with up to 1.5 million random read IOPS and 2 million random write IOPS. However, as we've already seen from various SSD brands, many PCIe 5.0 SSDs won't exceed 10 GB/s when it comes to the sequential read/write speeds. This is because the current NAND flash simply isn't fast enough to saturate the PCIe 5.0 bus, which is capable of 15.75 GB/s. That said, Micron's 232-layer 3D NAND should be able to boost the performance up to 12.4 GB/s based on the numbers Gigabyte announced for their Aorus Gen 10000 SSD.

Based on an article over at Tom's Hardware, we shouldn't expect too many drives that exceed 10 GB/s sequential writes at launch, due to most drives using 176-layer 3D NAND flash, that is limited to 1600 MT/s. As such, it might be wise to hold off on buying the first generation of PCIe 5.0 drives and wait for better availability of 232-layer 3D NAND, as beyond Micron, SK Hynix is expected to have a 238-layer 3D NAND flash in the market sometime in the first half of 2023. If you're not really eager to have the fastest SSD out there for pure bragging rights, it would seem that mid 2023 might be the right time to get a PCIe 5.0 SSD.

According to TrendForce research, material supply improvement and spiking demand for enterprise SSDs from North American hyperscale data center and enterprise clients in 2Q22 coupled with the Kioxia contamination incident in 1Q22 prompted customers to ramp up procurement to avoid future supply shortages. Manufacturers also give priority to meeting the needs of server customers due to the high pricing of enterprise SSD. In the second quarter, overall revenue of the enterprise SSD market increased by 31.3% to US$7.32 billion.

As the market leader, Samsung has grown its enterprise SSD revenue to US$3.26 billion with the recovery of enterprise SSD procurement. Especially in the second quarter, when orders for other consumer products continued to decline, enterprise SSD became the company's outlet for reducing production capacity. At present, Samsung has been continuously investing in the development of next-generation transmission specification products such as the CXL 2.0 product released at the Flash Summit in early August, in order to maintain a leading position in the market.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has developed the industry's highest 238-layer NAND Flash product. The company has recently shipped samples of the 238-layer 512Gb triple level cell (TLC) 4D NAND product to customers with a plan to start mass production in the first half of 2023. "The latest achievement follows development of the 176-layer NAND product in December 2020," the company stated. "It is notable that the latest 238-layer product is most layered and smallest in area at the same time."

The company unveiled development of the latest product at the Flash Memory Summit 2022 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 Inc. reported today revenues of 13.81 trillion won, operating profit of 4.19 trillion won (with operating margin of 30%), and net income of 2.88 trillion (with net income margin 21%) in the second quarter of 2022. SK hynix reported 12.16 trillion won in revenues, 2.86 trillion won in operating profit, and net income 1.98 trillion won in the first quarter of 2022 The company achieved record high quarterly sales along with operating profits over 4 trillion won.

This is the first time that SK hynix has posted revenues over 13 trillion won in a single quarter. Previously, the company's highest quarterly revenues were 12.38 trillion won, recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021. "Although DRAM product prices fell during the second quarter, revenues increased as NAND prices rose and overall sales volume increased," the company said. "Continued rise of the US dollar and the addition of Solidigm's sales also worked as positive factors for the quarterly revenue."

SK hynix Inc. today announced availability of the "Platinum P41" PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD that distills technical excellence driven by unmatched speeds and reliability. The Platinum series represents the company's flagship retail lineup geared towards gamers and content creators looking to turbo-boost PC performance. Launched as SK hynix's first PCIe 4.0 SSD built with advanced 176-layer NAND flash memory, the Platinum P41 is now available for purchase on Amazon in the U.S. in 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB capacity options.

Designed to excel among PCIe 4.0 SSDs, the Platinum P41 offers sequential read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 6,500 MB/s with an industry-leading endurance rating of up to 1,200 TBW. The Platinum P41 also provides further assurance of reliability with an SK hynix in-house "Aries" controller, which in itself contributes to the superior read/write speeds.

V-Color, a leading memory provider, announces the launch of Manta XPrism RGB DDR5 gaming series, with speeds of DDR5-5600 CL36-36-36-76 1.2 V to 6400 MHz CL32-39-39-102 1.4v. Available in dual channel kits of 32 GB (2x 16 GB) using carefully sorted Hynix ICs for superior overclocking performance, the Manta XPrism RGB DDR5 is designed for the latest 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors and Intel Z690 chipset motherboard and is XMP 3.0 ready for easy overclocking. To fully complete PC builds, v-color also offers patented SCC 2+2 KIT, available in black and white, for filling unused DIMM slots.

The Manta XPrism RGB comes in 32 GB (2x16GB) modules and offers high-speed performance ranging from 5600 MHz to 6400 MHz. The XPrism RGB is XMP 3.0 ready for optimal frequencies by simply applying profiles in the BIOS. Additionally, each Manta XPrism RGB goes through v-color's patented auto-screening process (Advanced O.C Smart Sorting System).

SK hynix, was the only company that presented its HBM3, a high-end product known as the fastest DRAM in existence with the biggest capacity, at NVIDIA GTC (GPU Technology Conference) 2022, which took place on March 21~24. Known as the world's best-performing DRAM, HBM3 is the fourth generation of the HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) technology. SK hynix's HBM3 uses over 8,000 TSVs per stack (i.e. over 100,000 TSVs in a 12-Hi stack) and can feature up to 12-Hi stack, which is an upgrade from the previous HBM2E's 8-Hi stack. When fully stacked, it can offer up to 24 GB of capacity. With a 16-channel architecture, it runs at 6.4 Gbps, which is double that of HBM2E and which is the fastest in the world, expecting to further accelerate our digital life.

For instance, HBM has become a prerequisite for the Levels 4 and 5 of driving automation when it comes to autonomous vehicles, a topic that has garnered a great deal of attention nowadays. Also, HBM3 is expected to play an even bigger role along with the growth of High Performance Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) markets fueled by the acceleration of digital transformation.