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.

SK hynix announced on February 16 that it has developed PIM (processing-in-memory), a next-generation memory chip with computing capabilities. It has been generally accepted that memory chips store data and CPU or GPU, like human brain, process data. SK hynix, following its challenge to such notion and efforts to pursue innovation in the next-generation smart memory, has found a breakthrough solution with the development of the latest technology.

SK hynix plans to showcase its PIM development at the world's most prestigious semiconductor conference, 2022 ISSCC, in San Francisco at the end of this month. The company expects continued efforts for innovation of this technology to bring the memory-centric computing, in which semiconductor memory plays a central role, a step closer to the reality in devices such as smartphones.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of the next version of its High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) DRAM standard: JESD238 HBM3, available for download from the JEDEC website. HBM3 is an innovative approach to raising the data processing rate used in applications where higher bandwidth, lower power consumption and capacity per area are essential to a solution's market success, including graphics processing and high-performance computing and servers.

SK hynix today unveiled the Platinum P41, the fastest M.2 NVMe SSD under the NAND flash and DRAM manufacturer's own marquee. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the drive is targeted at the DIY PC enthusiast segment, and is the company's first client-segment drive to take advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface. The drive combines an in-house controller design by the company, codenamed "Aries," with the company's latest 176-layer 3D NAND flash, and a DDR4 DRAM cache.

The SK hynix Platinum P41 comes in three variants based on capacity—500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. All three feature a compact design. The company didn't release variant-specific performance numbers, but made broad performance claims for the series. It offers sequential reads of up to 7,000 MB/s, with up to 6,500 MB/s sequential writes, up to 1.4 million IOPS 4K random reads; and up to 1.3 million IOPS 4K random writes. The endurance claims for the 500 GB variant are 500 TBW, for the 1 TB are 750 TBW, and for the 2 TB variant are 1,200 TBW. The drives are backed by 5-year warranties. The company will release pricing and availability later into Q1 2022 (before April).

Update Jan 4th: Additional technical details on the 176-layer NAND flash can be found here and here.

Hynix also confirmed to us that the Platinum P41 uses Hynix components exclusively: "The P41 uses TLC, SK hynix Aries controller, SK hynix NAND & DRAM." This also clarifies that the drive is TLC, so there's no chance for stealth component changes to QLC like on some other vendors.

SK hynix today announced that it has shipped samples of 24 Gigabit (Gb) DDR5* DRAM with the industry's largest density for a single DRAM chip. The announcement of SK hynix releasing the industry's largest density DDR5 chip comes in just 14 months after the Company became the first to release DDR5 DRAM in October 2020, further solidifying the chipmaker's technological leadership in DDR5.

The new 24 Gb DDR5 was produced with the cutting-edge 1 anm technology that utilizes EUV process. It has a density of 24Gb per chip, which is up from the existing density of 16 Gb in 1 ynm DDR5, with improved production efficiency and increased speed by up to 33%. In addition, SK hynix managed to reduce the product's power consumption by *25% compared to existing products while lowering energy use in manufacturing through enhanced production efficiency. SK hynix expects the product to bring about reduction in carbon emissions as well, which is meaningful in the context of ESG management.

As the global vaccination rate rose, and border restrictions in Europe and North America eased, social activities also began to enter a period of recovery, with the consumer electronics market seemingly ready for the arrival of the traditional peak season in 2H21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. At the same time, however, the global supply chain was affected by delays in maritime transport, skyrocketing shipping costs, and component shortages, in addition to already-prohibitive price hikes for certain components in 1H21. Given the parallel rise in both material and manufacturing costs, the market for end products has not undergone the expected cyclical upturn in 2H21. Even so, the overall demand for and shipment of smartphones, notebook computers, and monitors experienced QoQ increases in 3Q21, thereby driving up businesses for major OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) companies. For 3Q21, the revenues of the top 10 OSAT companies reached US$8.89 billion, a 31.6% YoY increase.

SK hynix announced that it has received an ISO 26262: 2018 FSM (Functional Safety Management) certification, the international standard for functional safety in automotive semiconductors. The global automotive functional safety certification institute, TUV Nord, conducted the assessment. Both companies commemorated the distinction by hosting an online ceremony. In attendance at the ceremony were Daeyong Shim, Head of Automotive Business, and Junho Song, Head of Quality System, from SK hynix and Bianca Pfuff, Profit Center Manager Functional Safety and Deputy Head of Certification Body SEECERT, and Josef Neumann, Senior Project Manager Functional Safety, from TUV Nord.

The ISO 26262 is the international standard for automobile functional safety established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2011 to prevent accidents caused by automotive electrical and electronic systems failures. This certification awarded to SK hynix, ISO 26262: 2018, is the latest version with additional requirements for automotive semiconductors. In the automotive industry, safety, quality, and reliability are paramount. Therefore, it is becoming essential that producers of car electronic device related to safety meet ISO 26262 standards.

SK hynix Inc. (or 'the Company', www.skhynix.com) today announced financial results for its third quarter 2021 ended on September 30, 2021. The consolidated revenue of the third quarter 2021 was 11.805 trillion won, while the operating profit amounted to 4.172 trillion won and the net income 3.315 trillion won. Operating margin for the quarter was 35% and net margin was 28%.

SK hynix achieved record high quarterly revenue since its foundation, and regained operating profit more than 4 trillion won after two and a half years since the fourth quarter of 2018. The increased semiconductor memory demand for server and smartphone (mobile) applications, alongside the improved product prices, contributed to the Company's record-breaking quarterly revenue.

SK hynix Inc. announced that it has become the first in the industry to successfully develop the High Bandwidth Memory 3, the world's best-performing DRAM. HBM3, the fourth generation of the HBM technology with a combination of multiple DRAM chips vertically connected, is a high value product that innovatively raises the data processing rate.

The latest development, which follows the start of mass production of HBM2E in July last year, is expected to help consolidate the company's leadership in the market. SK hynix was also the first in the industry to start mass production of HBM2E. SK hynix's HBM3 is not only the fastest DRAM in the world, but also comes with the biggest capacity and significantly improved level of quality.

SK Hynix is at the forefront of developing the next generation of stacked high-bandwidth memory, the HBM3 standard. Succeeding the current HBM2e standard, HBM3 will power next-generation HPC and AI processors in high-density multi-chip modules. A Tom's Hardware report citing information from SK Hynix reveals two key details about the new standard. For starters, it could offer per-pin data-rates of 5.2 Gbps, a 44% increase over the 3.6 Gbps that HBM2e caps out at. This results in a per-stack bandwidth of 665 GB/s, compared to 480 GB/s for the HBM2e. A processor with four such stacks (over a 4096-bit wide bus), would hence enjoy 2.66 TB/s of memory bandwidth. It's likely that HBM3 stacks from SK Hynix could implement the DBI Ultra 2.5D/3D hybrid bonding interconnect technology licensed from Xperi Corp.

Korean DRAM and NAND flash giant, SK Hynix, admitted that a rather big batch of its DRAM wafers is defective and in circulation. The size of this defective batch is rumored to be 240,000 wafers according to a Yonhap report, although the company downplays the scale of the problem citing its monthly production output of 1.8 million wafers.

The company said that it is working with its customers who received these wafers, for recall and replacement. "We're currently talking to a limited number of customers affected by this to address the issue. While it's too early to estimate the potential losses, we don't think they would be that significant as the defect is within the range of typical quality issue check." Besides this, the company is battling rumors surrounding the scale of defective DRAM wafers by the company, in circulation. "The scale of the potential losses mentioned in the rumor is absolutely not true and exaggerated," the company said, in a statement to The Register.

Demand for DRAM exceeded expectations in 1Q21 as the proliferation of WFH and distance education resulted in high demand for notebook computers against market headwinds, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Also contributing to the increased DRAM demand was Chinese smartphone brands' ramp-up of component procurement while these companies, including OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi, attempted to seize additional market shares after Huawei's inclusion on the Entity List. Finally, DRAM demand from server manufacturers also saw a gradual recovery. Taken together, these factors led to higher-than-expected shipments from various DRAM suppliers in 1Q21 despite the frequent shortage of such key components as IC and passive components. On the other hand, DRAM prices also entered an upward trajectory in 1Q21 in accordance with TrendForce's previous forecasts. In light of the increases in both shipments and quotes, all DRAM suppliers posted revenue growths in 1Q21, and overall DRAM revenue for the quarter reached US$19.2 billion, an 8.7% growth QoQ.

Demand for PC, mobile, graphics, and special DRAM remains healthy in 2Q21. Furthermore, after two to three quarters of inventory reduction during which their DRAM demand was relatively sluggish, some server manufacturers have now kicked off a new round of procurement as they expect a persistent increase in DRAM prices. TrendForce therefore forecasts a significant QoQ increase in DRAM ASP in 2Q21. In conjunction with increased bit shipment, this price hike will likely drive total DRAM revenue for 2Q21 to increase by more than 20% QoQ.

Today, we are getting a report coming from the South Korean press, stating that the country of South Korea has just given SK Hynix the green light to start building the mega factory complex. Being in the planning phase for a long time, the new mega factory is going to be located in Yongin, a city set 50 km south of the capital Seoul. The company expects to break ground with construction in Q4 of this year, and finish everything and start volume production of DRAM in 2025. When it comes to the size of the new mega factory, the plant is going to have an area of ​​4.15 million square meters.

The total cost of it will be about $106 billion worth of investment from SK Hynix, making all the recent fab construction plans look tiny compared to this massive investment. The mega factory complex would consist out of four fabs, where their total wafer per month output would be around 800,000. These foundries will be in charge of producing regular DRAM, and next-generation DRAM technologies like we have talked about just a few days ago. It remains to be seen what the company will come out with in the future, however, we are watching its moves closely.

On March 22nd, the CEO of SK Hynix, Seok-Hee Lee, gave a keynote speech to the IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS) and shared with experts a part of its plan for the future of SK Hynix products. The CEO took the stage and delivered some conceptual technologies that the company is working on right now. At the center of the show, two distinct products stood out - 3D NAND and DRAM. So far, the company has believed that its 3D NAND scaling was very limited and that it can push up to 500 layers sometime in the future before the limit is reached. However, according to the latest research, SK Hynix will be able to produce 600-layer 3D NAND technology in the distant future.

So far, the company has managed to manufacture and sample 512Gb 176-layer 3D NAND chips, so the 600-layer solutions are still far away. Nonetheless, it is a possibility that we are looking at. Before we reach that layer number, there are various problems needed to be solved so the technology can work. According to SK Hynix, "the company introduced the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology to further improve the cell property of efficiently storing electric charges and exporting them when needed, while developing technology to maintain uniform electric charges over a certain amount through the innovation of dielectric materials. In addition to this, to solve film stress issues, the mechanical stress levels of films is controlled and the cell oxide-nitride (ON) material is being optimized. To deal with the interference phenomenon between cells and charge loss that occur when more cells are stacked at a limited height, SK Hynix developed the isolated-charge trap nitride (isolated-CTN) structure to enhance reliability."