Colorful Technology Company Limited, a leading brand in gaming PC components, gaming laptops, and Hi-fi audio products, introduces the iGame Shadow Series performance DDR5 memory. The iGame Shadow DDR5 memory features an artistic heatsink design inspired by Chinese ink wash paintings. The memory does come with ARGB lighting that can synchronize with the rest of your build via the iGame Center software.

iGame Shadow DDR5 Series memory is aesthetic and built for performance. The iGame Shadow is available in a wide range of specifications from DDR5-6000 CL28 to extreme-performance DDR5-8400 CL42, designed to meet the performance demands of mainstream and high-end flagship motherboard users. The memory uses high-quality SK Hynix M-die, known for performance ideal for overclocking. The iGame Shadow memory features aluminium alloy heatsink designed to optimize heat dissipation.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has completed development of its high-capacity SSD product, PS1012 U.2, designed for AI data centers. As the era of AI accelerates, the demand for high-performance enterprise SSDs (eSSD) is rapidly increasing, and QLC technology, which enables high capacity, has become the industry standard. In line with this trend, SK hynix has developed a 61 TB product using this technology and introduced it to the market.

SK hynix has been leading the SSD market for AI data centers with Solidigm, a subsidiary which commercialized QLC-based eSSD for the first time in the world. With the development of PS1012, the company expects to build a balanced SSD portfolio, thereby maximizing synergy between the two companies. With the latest 5th generation (Gen 5) PCIe, PS1012 doubles its bandwidth compared to 4th generation based products. As a result, the data transfer speed reaches 32 GT/s (Gig-transfers per second), with the sequential read performance of 13 GB/s (Gigabyte per second), which is twice that of previous generation products.

Lexar late last week introduced the ARES DDR5-6000 CL26 memory kit. The kit is optimized for AMD Ryzen platforms, such as the recently launched Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It comes with an AMD EXPO profile for DDR5-6000 and tight timings, including a CAS latency of 26, or 55 ns. It also includes an Intel XMP 3.0 profile that enables the same timings. Typical DDR5-6000 kits tend to come with a CL of 30. Under the hood, the kit uses SK Hynix A-die DRAM chips, and a 10-layer PCB. The module features thermal pads for not just the DRAM chips, but also the PMIC. These transfer heat to a 1.8 mm-thick aluminium heatspreader that's crowned by a silicone diffuser for the module's lighting setup that consists of eight ARGB LEDs, with 13 lighting presets. The module comes in two color options—silver and black. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

Although it was revealed back in March this year, SK hynix new Platinum P51 PCIe 5.0 has only just now launched in South Korea and the specs have been boosted since March. The official sequential read speed is now rated at 14.7 GB/s vs. 13.5 GB/s in March and likewise, the sequential write speed has increased to 13.4 GB/s from 11.5 GB/s. We're also looking at a random IOPS read speed of up to 2,300k and random write IOPS of up to 2,400k. This compares really favourably compared to Phison E26 based SSDs, especially the random IOPS are very impressive.

However, it's not all good news, as the endurance tops out at 1200 TBW on the 2 TB SKU, which is pretty much what every other modern SSD offers today and somewhat disappointing considering that we're looking at SK hynix 238 layer 3D TLC NAND here. The 2 TB SKU is also the largest size available for now and the Platinum P51 will also come in 1 TB and 500 GB flavours. Another not so great, is the 10 W power consumption, even though SK hynix claims it's industry leading, but we know that this isn't true, as the Silicon Motion SM2508 controller is more power efficient than that. The drive has already been quickly benchmarked by South Korean hardware site Quasar Zone and it delivers in terms of the claimed speeds from the manufacturer, at least according to the CrystalDiskMark numbers. No pricing has tipped up as yet, so we'll have to wait to see how competitive the drive will be in an already crowded market. However, it's worth keeping in mind that SK hynix tends to charge a premium for its SSDs over many of its competitors.

Update Dec 14th: The 2 TB SKU has a retail price of 473,000 Korean Won, which equals about US$330, making it prohibitively expensive at the moment, even compared to most other PCIe 5.0 SSDs on the market. The 1 TB SKU comes in at 279,000 Korean Won, or about US$195. The Korean prices include 10% VAT/sales tax.

Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today announced that it has pioneered a new custom HBM compute architecture that enables XPUs to achieve greater compute and memory density. The new technology is available to all of its custom silicon customers to improve the performance, efficiency and TCO of their custom XPUs. Marvell is collaborating with its cloud customers and leading HBM manufacturers, Micron, Samsung Electronics, and SK hynix to define and develop custom HBM solutions for next-generation XPUs.

HBM is a critical component integrated within the XPU using advanced 2.5D packaging technology and high-speed industry-standard interfaces. However, the scaling of XPUs is limited by the current standard interface-based architecture. The new Marvell custom HBM compute architecture introduces tailored interfaces to optimize performance, power, die size, and cost for specific XPU designs. This approach considers the compute silicon, HBM stacks, and packaging. By customizing the HBM memory subsystem, including the stack itself, Marvell is advancing customization in cloud data center infrastructure. Marvell is collaborating with major HBM makers to implement this new architecture and meet cloud data center operators' needs.

Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today announced that it has pioneered a new custom HBM compute architecture that enables XPUs to achieve greater compute and memory density. The new technology is available to all of its custom silicon customers to improve the performance, efficiency and TCO of their custom XPUs. Marvell is collaborating with its cloud customers and leading HBM manufacturers, Micron, Samsung Electronics, and SK hynix to define and develop custom HBM solutions for next-generation XPUs.

HBM is a critical component integrated within the XPU using advanced 2.5D packaging technology and high-speed industry-standard interfaces. However, the scaling of XPUs is limited by the current standard interface-based architecture. The new Marvell custom HBM compute architecture introduces tailored interfaces to optimize performance, power, die size, and cost for specific XPU designs. This approach considers the compute silicon, HBM stacks, and packaging. By customizing the HBM memory subsystem, including the stack itself, Marvell is advancing customization in cloud data center infrastructure. Marvell is collaborating with major HBM makers to implement this new architecture and meet cloud data center operators' needs.

SK Hynix plans to produce its 6th generation high-bandwidth memory chips (HBM4) using TSMC's 3 nm process, a change from initial plans to use the 5 nm technology. The Korea Economic Daily reports that these chips will be delivered to NVIDIA in the second half of 2025. NVIDIA's GPU products are currently based on 4 nm HBM chips. The HBM4 prototype chip launched in March by SK Hynix features vertical stacking on a 3 nm die., compared to a 5 nm base die, the new 3 nm-based HBM chip is expected to offer a 20-30% performance improvement. However, SK Hynix's general-purpose HBM4 and HBM4E chips will continue to use the 12 nm process in collaboration with TSMC.

While SK Hynix's fifth-generation HBM3E chips used its own base die technology, the company has chosen TSMC's 3 nm technology for HBM4. This decision is anticipated to significantly widen the performance gap with competitor Samsung Electronics, which plans to manufacture its HBM4 chips using the 4 nm process. SK hynix is currently leading the global HBM market with almost 50% of market share, most of its HBM products been delivered to NVIDIA.

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are working together to standardize "Low Power Double Data Rate 6 (LPDDR6) - Processing in Memory (PIM)" technology according to a report from Business Korea. This collaboration seeks to accelerate the development of low power memory products. The cooperation is still in its early stage, the companies initial work is focused on registering the standard with the Joint Electron and Device Engineering Council (JEDEC). Discussions are underway to determine technical requirements, specific characteristics of LPDDR with PIM, such as "internal bandwidth"—the data transfer rate within the memory, unlike the "external bandwidth" between the processor and memory in traditional systems. According to a Samsung Electronics representative, the two companies are in the process of developing a timeline for standardization.

This partnership is notable given how Samsung and SK hynix compete in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market. SK hynix beat Samsung in profits reporting 7.3 trillion won in the third quarter, while Samsung made 3.86 trillion won. However, the rise of AI with its increased demand for more memory has shaken up the scene pushing for teamwork instead of wasting resources in developing completely different and unstandardized products. Both firms see PIM technology as a way to grow, previous attempts to independently develop PIM products include Samsung's HBM and LPDDR5-PIM and SK hynix's GDDR6-PIM.

TrendForce's latest investigations reveal that the global DRAM industry revenue reached US$26.02 billion in 3Q24, marking a 13.6% QoQ increase. The rise was driven by growing demand for DDR5 and HBM in data centers, despite a decline in LPDDR4 and DDR4 shipments due to inventory reduction by Chinese smartphone brands and capacity expansion by Chinese DRAM suppliers. ASPs continued their upward trend from the previous quarter, with contract prices rising by 8% to 13%, further supported by HBM's displacement of conventional DRAM production.

Looking ahead to 4Q24, TrendForce projects a QoQ increase in overall DRAM bit shipments. However, the capacity constraints caused by HBM production are expected to have a weaker-than-anticipated impact on pricing. Additionally, capacity expansions by Chinese suppliers may prompt PC OEMs and smartphone brands to aggressively deplete inventory to secure lower-priced DRAM products. As a result, contract prices for conventional DRAM and blended prices for conventional DRAM and HBM are expected to decline.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has started mass production of the world's first triple level cell-based 321-high 4D NAND Flash with 1 Tb capacity. Following its previous record as the industry's first provider of the world's highest 238-layer NAND since June last year, SK hynix has become the world's first supplier of the NAND with more than 300 layers by finding a technological breakthrough for stacking. 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" process technology. Known for its excellent production efficiency, the process 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-stress material, while introducing the technology that automatically corrects alignments among the plugs.

SK hynix announced the first 48 GB 16-high HBM3E in the industry at the SK AI Summit in Seoul today. During the event, news came out about newer plans to develop their next-gen memory tech. Reuters and ZDNet Korea reported that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang asked SK hynix to speed up their HBM4 delivery by six months. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won shared this info at the Summit. The company had earlier said they would give HBM4 chips to customers in the second half of 2025.

When ZDNet asked about this sped-up plan, SK hynix President Kwak Noh-Jung gave a careful answer saying "We will give it a try." A company spokesperson told Reuters that this new schedule would be quicker than first planned, but they didn't share more details. In a video interview shown at the Summit, NVIDIA's Jensen Huang pointed out the strong team-up between the companies. He said working with SK hynix has helped NVIDIA go beyond Moore's Law performance gains. He stressed that NVIDIA will keep needing SK hynix's HBM tech for future products. SK hynix plans to supply the latest 12-layer HBM3E to an undisclosed customer this year, and will start sampling of the 16-layer HBM3E early next year.

SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung, during his keynote speech titled "A New Journey in Next-Generation AI Memory: Beyond Hardware to Daily Life" at SK AI Summit in Seoul, made public development of the industry's first 48 GB 16-high - the world's highest number of layers followed by the 12-high product—HBM3E. Kwak also shared the company's vision to become a "Full Stack AI Memory Provider", or a provider with a full lineup of AI memory products in both DRAM and NAND spaces, through close collaboration with interested parties.

Team Group Industrial has officially introduced the industry's first industrial-grade DDR5 6400 MHz CU-DIMM/CSO-DIMM memory modules. The innovative product addresses challenges posed by high-frequency operation on signal stability by incorporating a specialized component known as the Client Clock Driver (CKD), which effectively buffers and drives clock signals, ensuring the signals remain stable and complete even under high-frequency conditions. This advancement sets a new benchmark in industrial storage technology, enhancing reliability and performance for demanding applications.

Team Group utilizes DDR5 Clocked Unbuffered Dual Inline Memory Module technology, which enables frequency and voltage adjustments based on system load and operating conditions, facilitating exceptional data transmission speeds and optimized power consumption performance, fully supporting the dynamic load requirements prevalent in industrial applications, and delivering solutions with outstanding performance and reliability.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it recorded 17.5731 trillion won in revenues, 7.03 trillion won in operating profit (with an operating margin of 40%), and 5.7534 trillion won in net profit (with a net margin of 33%) in the third quarter this year. Quarterly revenues marked all-time high, exceeding the previous record of 16.4233 trillion won in the second quarter of this year by more than 1 trillion won. Operating profit and net profit also far exceeded the record of 6.4724 trillion won and 4.6922 trillion won in the third quarter of 2018 during the semiconductor super boom.

SK hynix emphasized that the demand for AI memory continued to be strong centered on data center customers, and the company marked its highest revenue since its foundation by expanding sales of premium products such as HBM and eSSD. In particular, HBM sales showed excellent growth, up more than 70% from the previous quarter and more than 330% from the same period last year.

SK hynix is showcasing its leading AI and data center memory products at the 2024 Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit held October 15-17 in San Jose, California. The annual summit brings together industry leaders to discuss advancements in open source hardware and data center technologies. This year, the event's theme is "From Ideas to Impact," which aims to foster the realization of theoretical concepts into real-world technologies.

In addition to presenting its advanced memory products at the summit, SK hynix is also strengthening key industry partnerships and sharing its AI memory expertise through insightful presentations. This year, the company is holding eight sessions—up from five in 2023—on topics including HBM and CMS.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has begun mass production of the world's first 12-layer HBM3E product with 36 GB, the largest capacity of existing HBM to date. The company plans to supply mass-produced products to customers within the year, proving its overwhelming technology once again six months after delivering the HBM3E 8-layer product to customers for the first time in the industry in March this year.

SK hynix is the only company in the world that has developed and supplied the entire HBM lineup from the first generation (HBM1) to the fifth generation (HBM3E), since releasing the world's first HBM in 2013. The company plans to continue its leadership in the AI memory market, addressing the growing needs of AI companies by being the first in the industry to mass-produce the 12-layer HBM3E.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that the key features of its Heterogeneous Memory Software Development Kit (HMSDK) are now available on Linux, the world's largest open source operating system. HMSDK is SK hynix's proprietary software for optimizing the operation of Compute Express Link (CXL), which is gaining attention as a next-generation AI memory technology along with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Having received global recognition for HMSDK's performance, SK hynix is now integrating it with Linux. This accomplishment marks a significant milestone for the company as it highlights the company's competitiveness in software, adding to the recognition for its high-performance memory hardware such as HBM.

In the future, developers around the world working on Linux will be able to use SK hynix's technology as the industry standard for CXL memory, putting the company in an advantageous position for global collaboration on next-generation memory. SK hynix's HMSDK enhances memory package's bandwidth by over 30% without modifying existing applications. It achieves this by selectively allocating memory based on the bandwidth between existing memory and expanded CXL memory. Additionally, the software improves performance by more than 12% over conventional systems through optimization based on access frequency, a feature which relocates frequently accessed data to faster memory.

TrendForce's latest reports reveal that the second quarter of 2024 saw a significant increase in demand for enterprise SSDs due to the increased deployment of NVIDIA GPU platforms and rising storage needs driven by AI applications, along with a surge in demand from server brands. The surge in demand for high-capacity SSDs for AI applications—coupled with suppliers' inability to adjust capacity in the first half of the year—resulted in a supply shortage that drove average enterprise SSD prices up by more than 25% QoQ. This price increase led to a revenue growth of over 50% for suppliers.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, demand from North American CSP customers continues to rise, and server brands show no signs of slowing down their orders, further boosting procurement volumes of enterprise SSD. With supply shortages persisting into the third quarter, TrendForce forecasts a 15% increase in contract prices compared to the previous quarter, with supplier revenues expected to grow by nearly 20%.

SK hynix unveiled an enhanced Accelerator-in-Memory based Accelerator (AiMX) card at the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit 2024 held September 9-12 in San Jose, California. Organized annually by Kisaco Research, the summit brings together representatives from the AI and machine learning ecosystem to share industry breakthroughs and developments. This year's event focused on exploring cost and energy efficiency across the entire technology stack. Marking its fourth appearance at the summit, SK hynix highlighted how its AiM products can boost AI performance across data centers and edge devices.

Booth Highlights: Meet the Upgraded AiMX
In the AI era, high-performance memory products are vital for the smooth operation of LLMs. However, as these LLMs are trained on increasingly larger datasets and continue to expand, there is a growing need for more efficient solutions. SK hynix addresses this demand with its PIM product AiMX, an AI accelerator card that combines multiple GDDR6-AiMs to provide high bandwidth and outstanding energy efficiency. At the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit 2024, SK hynix presented its updated 32 GB AiMX prototype which offers double the capacity of the original card featured at last year's event. To highlight the new AiMX's advanced processing capabilities in a multi-batch environment, SK hynix held a demonstration of the prototype card with the Llama 3 70B model, an open source LLM. In particular, the demonstration underlined AiMX's ability to serve as a highly effective attention accelerator in data centers.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has developed PEB110 E1.S (PEB110), a high-performance solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers. With the advent of the AI era, customer demand for high-performance NAND solutions such as SSDs for data centers, as well as ultra-fast DRAM chips including high bandwidth memory (HBM), is growing. In line with this trend, the company has developed and introduced a new product with improved data processing speed and power efficiency by applying the fifth-generation (Gen 5) PCIe specifications.

SK hynix expects to meet diverse customer needs with a more robust SSD portfolio following successful mass production of PS1010 with the introduction of PEB110. The company is currently in the qualification process with a global data center customer and plans to begin mass production of the product in the second quarter of next year, pending qualification. PCle Gen 5, applied to the new product, provides twice the bandwidth of the fourth generation (Gen 4), enabling PEB110 to achieve data transfer rates of up to 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s). This enables PEB110 to double the performance of the previous generation and improve power efficiency by more than 30%.

TrendForce reports that NAND Flash prices continued to rise in 2Q24 as server inventory adjustments neared completion and AI spurred demand for high-capacity storage products. However, high inventory levels among PC and smartphone buyers led to a 1% QoQ decline in NAND Flash bit shipments. Despite this, ASP increased by 15% and drove total revenue to US$16.796 billion, a 14.2% growth compared to the previous quarter.

All NAND Flash suppliers returned to profitability starting in the second quarter and are expanding capacity in the third quarter to meet strong demand from AI and server markets. However, weaker-than-expected PC and smartphone sales in the first half of the year are likely to constrain NAND Flash shipment growth.

SK hynix announced today that it has developed the industry's first 16 Gb DDR5 built using its 1c node, the sixth generation of the 10 nm process. The success marks the beginning of the extreme scaling to the level closer to 10 nm in the memory process technology. The degree of difficulty to advance the shrinking process of the 10 nm-range DRAM technology has grown over generations, but SK hynix has become the first in the industry to overcome the technological limitations by raising the level of completion in design, thanks to its industry-leading technology of the 1b, the fifth generation of the 10 nm process.

SK hynix said it will be ready for mass production of the 1c DDR5 within the year to start volume shipment next year. In order to reduce potential errors stemming from the procedure of advancing the process and transfer the advantage of the 1b, which is widely applauded for its best performing DRAM, in the most efficient way, the company extended the platform of the 1b DRAM for development of 1c. The new product comes with an improvement in cost competitiveness, compared with the previous generation, by adopting a new material in certain process of the extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, while optimizing the EUV application process of total. SK hynix also enhanced productivity by more than 30% through technological innovation in design.

Samsung Electronics is set to make a significant leap in semiconductor manufacturing technology with the introduction of its first High-NA 0.55 EUV lithography tool. The company plans to install the ASML Twinscan EXE:5000 system at its Hwaseong campus between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, marking a crucial step in developing next-generation process technologies for logic and DRAM production. This move positions Samsung about a year behind Intel but ahead of rivals TSMC and SK Hynix in adopting High-NA EUV technology. The system is expected to be operational by mid-2025, primarily for research and development purposes. Samsung is not just focusing on the lithography equipment itself but is building a comprehensive ecosystem around High-NA EUV technology.

The company is collaborating with several key partners like Lasertec (developing inspection equipment for High-NA photomasks), JSR (working on advanced photoresists), Tokyo Electron (enhancing etching machines), and Synopsys (shifting to curvilinear patterns on photomasks for improved circuit precision). The High-NA EUV technology promises significant advancements in chip manufacturing. With an 8 nm resolution capability, it could make transistors about 1.7 times smaller and increase transistor density by nearly three times compared to current Low-NA EUV systems. However, the transition to High-NA EUV comes with challenges. The tools are more expensive, costing up to $380 million each, and have a smaller imaging field. Their larger size also requires chipmakers to reconsider fab layouts. Despite these hurdles, Samsung aims for commercial implementation of High-NA EUV by 2027.

SK hynix has returned to Santa Clara, California to present its full array of groundbreaking AI memory technologies at FMS: the Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) 2024 from August 6-8. Previously known as Flash Memory Summit, the conference changed its name to reflect its broader focus on all types of memory and storage products amid growing interest in AI. Bringing together industry leaders, customers, and IT professionals, FMS 2024 covers the latest trends and innovations shaping the memory industry.

Participating in the event under the slogan "Memory, The Power of AI," SK hynix is showcasing its outstanding memory capabilities through a keynote presentation, multiple technology sessions, and product exhibits.

SK hynix Inc. announced today it has signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms with the U.S. Department of Commerce to receive up to $450 million in proposed direct funding and access to proposed loans of $500 million as part of the CHIPS and Science Act for its investment to build a production base for semiconductor packaging in Indiana. Separately, SK hynix plans to seek from the U.S. Department of the Treasury a tax benefit equivalent of up to 25% of the qualified capital expenditures through the Investment Tax Credit program.

SK hynix said it deeply appreciates the U.S. government's support and will comply with the requirements for the remaining procedures until the proposed funding is finalized. The company also said that it will proceed with the construction of the Indiana production base as planned to meet the plan to provide AI memory products. Through this, it looks forward to contributing to build a more resilient supply chain of the global semiconductor industry.