TrendForce reports a pivotal shift in the NAND Flash market for 3Q23, primarily driven by Samsung's strategic decision to reduce production. Initially, the market was clouded by uncertainty regarding end-user demand and fears of a subdued peak season, prompting buyers to adopt a conservative approach with low inventory and slow procurement. However, as market leaders like Samsung implemented substantial production cuts, buyers' attitudes shifted toward a more aggressive procurement strategy in anticipation of a market supply decrease. This led to a stabilization and even an uptick in NAND Flash contract prices by quarter-end, driving a 3% QoQ increase in bit shipments and culminating in a total revenue of US$9.229 billion, marking an approximate 2.9% increase.

The story unfolds with Kioxia and Micron—the only two to witness a dip in revenue rankings this quarter—while Samsung maintained its robust performance. Despite sluggish demand in the server sector, Samsung's fortunes rebounded thanks to a boost in consumer electronics, especially with high-capacity products in PCs and smartphones. Samsung emerged from a trough in Q3, with strategic inventory replenishments fueling further strategic stocking, and a shift in operational focus toward maximizing profit. This led to a minor 1-3% decrease in shipped bits, but a 1-3% increase in ASP, stabilizing Q3 NAND Flash revenue at US$2.9 billion.

TrendForce's latest research into the HBM market indicates that NVIDIA plans to diversify its HBM suppliers for more robust and efficient supply chain management. Samsung's HBM3 (24 GB) is anticipated to complete verification with NVIDIA by December this year. The progress of HBM3e, as outlined in the timeline below, shows that Micron provided its 8hi (24 GB) samples to NVIDIA by the end of July, SK hynix in mid-August, and Samsung in early October.

Given the intricacy of the HBM verification process—estimated to take two quarters—TrendForce expects that some manufacturers might learn preliminary HBM3e results by the end of 2023. However, it's generally anticipated that major manufacturers will have definite results by 1Q24. Notably, the outcomes will influence NVIDIA's procurement decisions for 2024, as final evaluations are still underway.

SK hynix presented its leading AI and high-performance computing (HPC) solutions at Supercomputing 2023 (SC23) held in Denver, Colorado between November 12-17. Organized by the Association for Computing Machinery and IEEE Computer Society since 1988, the annual SC conference showcases the latest advancements in HPC, networking, storage, and data analysis. SK hynix marked its first appearance at the conference by introducing its groundbreaking memory solutions to the HPC community. During the six-day event, several SK hynix employees also made presentations revealing the impact of the company's memory solutions on AI and HPC.

Displaying Advanced HPC & AI Products
At SC23, SK hynix showcased its products tailored for AI and HPC to underline its leadership in the AI memory field. Among these next-generation products, HBM3E attracted attention as the HBM solution meets the industry's highest standards of speed, capacity, heat dissipation, and power efficiency. These capabilities make it particularly suitable for data-intensive AI server systems. HBM3E was presented alongside NVIDIA's H100, a high-performance GPU for AI that uses HBM3 for its memory.

V-COLOR Technology Inc. is proud to announce the launch of a new TUF Gaming Alliance Memory, available in both DDR5 XPrism and DDR4 Prism Pro series, showcasing a striking design and exceptional performance. This collaboration with the ASUS TUF Gaming Alliance ensures that components bearing this badge undergo testing that surpasses the industry's standard norms. This rigorous testing is implemented to ensure superior compatibility, stability, and durability, catering to the specific needs of gamers and PC enthusiasts globally.

The new memory kits are offered in configurations of 32 GB (2x 16 GB) with speeds ranging from 5600 MHz to 6400 MHz for DDR5, and 16 GB (2x 8 GB) to 32 GB (2x 16 GB) with speeds ranging from 3200 MHz to 3600 MHz for DDR4 memory. The memory modules are equipped with powerful SK Hynix chips. DDR5 memory is compatible with Intel XMP, and DDR4 is compatible with both INTEL and AMD platforms.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has started supplying its customers with 16 gigabyte (GB) packages of Low Power Double Data Rate 5 Turbo (LPDDR5T), the fastest mobile DRAM available today that can transfer 9.6 gigabits per second (Gbps). Since the successful development of its LPDDR5T in January, SK hynix has been preparing to commercialize the product by conducting performance verification with global mobile application processor (AP) manufacturers.

SK hynix explained that LPDDR5T is the optimal memory to maximize the performance of smartphones, with the highest speed ever achieved. The company also emphasized that it would continue to expand the application range of this product and lead the generation shift in the mobile DRAM sector. The LPDDR5T 16 GB package operates in the ultra-low voltage range of 1.01 to 1.12 V set by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), and can process 77 GB of data per second, which is equivalent to transferring 15 full high-definition (FHD) movies in one second.

According to sources close to Nikkei, the merger discussions between Western Digital and Kioxia has been terminated. Western Digital notified Kioxia about scrapping the possible transaction, citing the failure to obtain approval from SK Hynix, a significant shareholder of Kioxia, and disagreements over merger terms with Bain Capital, Kioxia's main shareholder. Western Digital and Kioxia, holding the fourth and second positions in the global NAND flash memory market, respectively, planned to join their NAND operations under one roof to create the world's largest maker of NAND memory and potentially enhance their competitive standing and profitability.

The merger was seen as a strategic move to rival Samsung's market dominance by leveraging the companies' combined resources and capabilities, and the plan was to happen as soon as the end of this month. However, the merger faced substantial opposition from SK Hynix, the world's third-largest NAND supplier with a 17.8% market share. Having invested more than $2.6 billion in a consortium led by Bain Capital that previously acquired Kioxia in 2018, SK Hynix expressed concerns that the proposed merger would adversely impact its market position and future collaboration opportunities with Kioxia. This opposition proved to be a pivotal obstacle, preventing the realization of the merger.

SK hynix Inc., today reported the financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2023. The company recorded revenues of 9.066 trillion won, operating losses of 1.792 trillion won and net losses of 2.185 trillion won in the three-month period. The operating and net margins were a negative 20% and 24%, respectively. After bottoming out in the first quarter, the business has been on a steady recovery track, helped by growing demand for products such as high-performance memory chips, the company said.

"Revenues grew 24%, while operating losses narrowed 38%, compared with the previous quarter, thanks to strong demand for high-performance mobile flagship products and HBM3, a key product for AI applications, and high-capacity DDR5," the company said, adding that a turnaround of the DRAM business following two quarters of losses is particularly hopeful. SK hynix attributed the growth in sales to increased shipments of both DRAM and NAND and a rise in the average selling price.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has started commercialization of the LPDDR5T (Low Power Double Data Rate 5 Turbo), the world's fastest DRAM for mobile with 9.6 Gbps speed. The company said that it has obtained the validation that the LPDDR5T is compatible with Qualcomm Technologies' new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform, marking the industry's first case for such product to be verified by the U.S. company.

SK hynix has proceeded with the compatibility validation of the LPDDR5T, following the completion of the development in January, with support from Qualcomm Technologies. The completion of the process means that it is compatible with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. With the validation process with Qualcomm Technologies, a leader in wireless telecommunication products and services, and other major mobile AP (Application Processor) providers successfully completed, SK hynix expects the range of the LPDDR5T adoption to grow rapidly.

SK hynix showcased its next-generation memory semiconductor technologies and solutions at the OCP Global Summit 2023 held in San Jose, California from October 17-19. The OCP Global Summit is an annual event hosted by the world's largest data center technology community, the Open Compute Project (OCP), where industry experts gather to share various technologies and visions. This year, SK hynix and its subsidiary Solidigm showcased advanced semiconductor memory products that will lead the AI era under the slogan "United Through Technology".

SK hynix presented a broad range of its solutions at the summit, including its leading HBM(HBM3/3E), CXL, and AiM products for generative AI. The company also unveiled some of the latest additions to its product portfolio including its DDR5 RDIMM, MCR DIMM, enterprise SSD (eSSD), and LPDDR CAMM devices. Visitors to the HBM exhibit could see HBM3, which is utilized in NVIDIA's H100, a high-performance GPU for AI, and also check out the next-generation HBM3E. Due to their low-power consumption and ultra-high-performance, these HBM solutions are more eco-friendly and are particularly suitable for power-hungry AI server systems.

Jung-Bae Lee, President and Head of Memory Business of Samsung Electronics, the world's largest NAND memory supplier, has noted in the blog post that Samsung plans to develop its 9th Generation V-NAND memory with over 300 layers, aiming for mass production in 2024. Samsung's V-NAND uses a double-stack structure and is expected to have more active layers than its competitors' 3D NAND memory, such as SK Hynix's forthcoming 321-layer memory. The increase in layers allows Samsung to enhance storage density and performance in its future 3D NAND devices, focusing on input/output (I/O) speed. While the specific performance details of Samsung's 9th Generation V-NAND remain undisclosed, the memory is expected to be used in next-generation PCIe SSDs with the PCIe 5.0 standard.

Jung-Bae Lee has noted: "New structural and material innovations will be critical in the upcoming era of sub-10-nanometer (nm) DRAM and 1,000-layer vertical V-NAND. As such, we are developing 3D stacked structures and new materials for DRAM while increasing layer count, decreasing height, and minimizing cell interference for V-NAND." The 9th installment of V-NAND, scheduled for 2024, is utilizing 11 nm-class DRAM. Additionally, the blog post reassures the commitment to CXL Memory Modules (CMM), which will enable the composable infrastructure of next-generation systems, especially with high-capacity SSDs powered by V-NAND.

The drawn out merger talks between Kioxia and Western Digital's memory and NAND flash manufacturing businesses appears to have hit an unexpected bump on the road, in the shape of SK Hynix according to the Nikkei. As it happens, SK Hynix holds an indirect stake in Kioxia and as such, they need to approve the merger for it to be able to happen. Today, SK Hynix is the second biggest manufacturer of NAND flash, somewhat behind Samsung, but if the Kioxia WD merger were to take place, SK Hynix would be pushed into a third place in the market, which wouldn't benefit the company.

As such, SK Hynix is trying to push for a rather odd option for Kioxia, where SK Hynix wants Japanese SoftBank—who owns among other things, Arm—to step in as a partner with Kioxia. However, what SK Hynix seems to have forgotten is that WD's memory chips are made in the same fab as Kioxia's and it's highly unlikely that WD would be keen on seeing this last minute proposal by SK Hynix play out. The Kioxia WD merger would result in a new company where Kioxia would own 63 percent and WD 37 percent, based on current assets. However, WD is meant to add further capital to the merger, so it can get a 50.1 percent stake in the final company for its shareholders, with Kioxia ending up with 49.9 percent.

SK hynix announced on September 22 that it showcased its latest memory technologies and products at Intel Innovation 2023 held September 19-20 in the western U.S. city of San Jose, California. Hosted by Intel since 2019, Intel Innovation is an annual IT exhibition which brings together the technology company's customers and partners to share the latest developments in the industry. At this year's event held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, SK hynix showcased its advanced semiconductor memory products which are essential in the generative AI era under the slogan "Pioneer Tomorrow With the Best."

Products that garnered the most interest were HBM3, which supports the high-speed performance of AI accelerators, and DDR5 RDIMM, a DRAM module for servers with 1bnm process technology. As one of SK hynix's core technologies, HBM3 has established the company as a trailblazer in AI memory. SK hynix plans to further strengthen its position in the market by mass-producing HBM3E (Extended) from 2024. Meanwhile, DDR5 RDIMM with 1bnm, or the 5th generation of the 10 nm process technology, also offers outstanding performance. In addition to supporting unprecedented transfer speeds of more than 6,400 megabits per second (Mbps), this low-power product helps customers simultaneously reduce costs and improve ESG performance.

SK hynix unveiled and demonstrated a prototype of AiMX (Accelerator-in-Memory based Accelerator), a generative AI accelerator card based on GDDR6-AiM, at the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit 2023 held September 12-14 at the Santa Clara Marriott, California.Hosted annually by the UK marketing firm Kisaco Research, the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit brings together global IT companies and high-profile startups to share their developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning. This is SK hynix's third time participating in the summit.

At the event, the company showcased the prototype of AiMX, an accelerator card that combines multiple GDDR6-AiMs to further enhance performance, along with the GDDR6-AIM itself under the slogan of "Boost Your AI: Discover the Power of PIM (Processing-In-Memory) with SK hynix's AiM (Accelerator in Memory)." As a low-power, high-speed memory solution capable of handling large amounts of data, AiMX is set to play a key role in the advancement of data-intensive generative AI systems. The performance of generative AI improves as it is trained on more data, highlighting the need for high-performance products which can be applied to an array of generative AI systems.

TrendForce's latest research paints a vivid picture: Q2 saw the NAND Flash market still grappling with lackluster demand and being significantly outpaced by supply. The ASP of NAND Flash also took a hit, tumbling 10-15%. Nevertheless, there was a silver lining as bit shipments grew by 19.9% QoQ from a low baseline in 1Q23. To sum up, the Q2 landscape of the NAND Flash sector witnessed a 7.4% QoQ growth in revenue, reaching US$9.338 billion.

From Q2, Samsung began reining in production with a further squeeze expected for the third quarter. With inventories set to thin out, price hikes loom on the horizon, possibly offering a remedy to the chronic supply-demand imbalance. Yet, a crowded supplier landscape in the NAND Flash sector means that many players, faced with hefty inventories, will likely continue aggressive sales into Q3. Forecasts suggests a deceleration in ASP decline for NAND Flash products in Q3 to 5-10%. Riding the stockpiling momentum for the high season, bit shipments are set to rise, propelling Q3 revenue growth past the 3% threshold.

TrendForce reports that rising demand for AI servers has driven growth in HBM shipments. Combined with the wave of inventory buildup for DDR5 on the client side, the second quarter saw all three major DRAM suppliers experience shipment growth. Q2 revenue for the DRAM industry reached approximately US$11.43 billion, marking a 20.4% QoQ increase and halting a decline that persisted for three consecutive quarters. Among suppliers, SK hynix saw a significant quarterly growth of over 35% in shipments. The company's shipments of DDR5 and HBM, both of which have higher ASP, increased significantly. As a result, SK hynix's ASP grew counter-cyclically by 7-9%, driving its Q2 revenue to increase by nearly 50%. With revenue reaching US$3.44 billion, SK hynix claimed the second spot in the industry, leading growth in the sector.

Samsung, with its DDR5 process still at 1Ynm and limited shipments in the second quarter, experienced a drop in its ASP by around 7-9%. However, benefitting from inventory buildup by module houses and increased demand for AI server setups, Samsung saw a slight increase in shipments. This led to an 8.6% QoQ increase in Q2 revenue, reaching US$4.53 billion, securing them the top position. Micron, ranking third, was a bit late in HBM development. However, DDR5 shipments held a significant proportion, keeping their ASP relatively stable. Boosted by shipments, its revenue was around US$2.95 billion, a quarterly increase of 15.7%. Both companies saw a reduction in their market share.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it successfully developed HBM3E, the next-generation of the highest-specification DRAM for AI applications currently available, and said a customer's evaluation of samples is underway. The company said that the successful development of HBM3E, the extended version of HBM3 which delivers the world's best specifications, comes on top of its experience as the industry's sole mass provider of HBM3. With its experience as the supplier of the industry's largest volume of HBM products and the mass-production readiness level, SK hynix plans to mass produce HBM3E from the first half of next year and solidify its unrivaled leadership in AI memory market.

According to the company, the latest product not only meets the industry's highest standards of speed, the key specification for AI memory products, but all categories including capacity, heat dissipation and user-friendliness. In terms of speed, the HBM3E can process data up to 1.15 terabytes a second, which is equivalent to processing more than 230 Full-HD movies of 5 GB-size each in a second.

It appears that Samsung is getting ready to beat SK Hynix in the race to 300 plus layers of NAND Flash, at least according to reports coming out of South Korea. The Seoul Economic Daily claims in an exclusive that Samsung will have a 300 plus layer V-NAND—(V for Vertical or 3D NAND—chip ready for production in 2024 and could as such beat SK Hynix by as much as a year, depending on how soon Samsung can deliver. Currently Samsung's most cutting edge stacked NAND is a 236-layer product, which is four more layers than Micron and YMTC, but two less than SK Hynix.

What sticks out in the Seoul Economic Daily news piece is that unlike SK Hynix, which is going for a triple stack sandwich, Samsung will apparently stick with two stacks. This means that Samsung is aiming for over 150-layers of NAND per stack, which seems like a big risk to take when it comes to yields. The taller the stacks, the bigger the chance of a failed stack, but maybe Samsung has found a solution around this potential issue. As modern 3D NAND relies on Through Silicon Vias, it's easier to manufacture denser stacks than in the past when wire bonding was used, but even so, this seems like a big risk for Samsung to take. That said, considering the current low demand and news of further cutbacks in production, it might be a good time for Samsung to utilise its fabs to test out this new, more densely stacked NAND to see if the company can mass produce it without issues. Samsung's roadmap calls for a 1000 plus layer V-NAND product by 2030, but it seems like the road there is still long and complicated.

Courtesy of an SK Hynix keynote speech at the Flash Memory Summit, we now have a few more details about its upcoming 321-layer NAND Flash. PC Watch Japan who attended the industry event shared some pictures from the keynote which adds some crucial details that were missing from last week's press release. SK Hynix's officially shared performance figures tell us that we should expect up to 12 percent faster program performance, which should be the write performance and up to 13 percent improved read latency. Both of these performance metrics will obviously depend on the SSD controller the NAND is paired with, the related firmware on said controller and so forth.

PC Watch Japan also quotes a program throughput of 194 MB/s, which is 26 MB/s improvement over SK Hynix 176-layer NAND and currently the highest known program throughput of any announced NAND Flash. That said, Kioxia is expecting to hit 205 MB/s with its next generation of 300 layer NAND. SK Hynix also claims 10 percent better read power efficiency, which is really neither here nor there when it comes to modern SSDs, unless we're talking server level SSDs with a dozen of these NAND chips or more. Rather than going with two stacks of 150 plus layers each, SK Hynix went with three times 107 layer stacks, which should be compared to their current 238 layer product which has two stacks of 119 layers. This made the new NAND package easier to produce and should in the long term result in higher yields. Each NAND package is expected to deliver a memory density of 20 Gbit per square millimetre or more, which is almost twice that of its 176-layer NAND.

SK hynix Inc. (or "the company", www.skhynix.com) announced today that it has begun supplying the industry's first 24-gigabyte (GB) Low Power Double Data Rate 5X (LPDDR5X) mobile DRAM package to its customers, following the mass production of LPDDR5X in November 2022. SK hynix, in January, developed LPDDR5T, which is an upgraded product of LPDDR5X prior to the development of the 8th generation LPDDR6, and is currently processing customer validation.

"The company integrated the High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process in the 24 GB LPDDR5X package, enabling the product to deliver outstanding power efficiency and performance," said SK hynix. "The addition of the 24 GB package to our mobile DRAM product portfolio has given us a more flexibility in accommodating customers' needs."

TrendForce highlights in its latest report that memory suppliers are boosting their production capacity in response to escalating orders from NVIDIA and CSPs for their in-house designed chips. These efforts include the expansion of TSV production lines to increase HBM output. Forecasts based on current production plans from suppliers indicate a remarkable 105% annual increase in HBM bit supply by 2024. However, due to the time required for TSV expansion, which encompasses equipment delivery and testing (9 to 12 months), the majority of HBM capacity is expected to materialize by 2Q24.

TrendForce analysis indicates that 2023 to 2024 will be pivotal years for AI development, triggering substantial demand for AI Training chips and thereby boosting HBM utilization. However, as the focus pivots to Inference, the annual growth rate for AI Training chips and HBM is expected to taper off slightly. The imminent boom in HBM production has presented suppliers with a difficult situation: they will need to strike a balance between meeting customer demand to expand market share and avoiding a surplus due to overproduction. Another concern is the potential risk of overbooking, as buyers, anticipating an HBM shortage, might inflate their demand.

SK hynix Inc. showcased today the sample of the 321-layer 4D NAND, making public the progress on its development of the industry's first NAND with more than 300 layers. The company gave a presentation on the progress on the development of its 321-layer 1 Tb TLC 4D NAND Flash and displayed the samples at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2023 taking place Aug. 8-10 in Santa Clara.

SK hynix is the first in the industry to unveil the progress on the development of a NAND with more than 300 layers in detail. The company plans to raise the level of completion of the 321-layer product and start mass production from the first half of 2025. The company said its technological competitiveness accumulated from the success of the world's highest 238-layer NAND, already in mass production, paved the way for a smooth progress for the development of the 321-layer product. "With another breakthrough to address stacking limitations, SK hynix will open the era of NAND with more than 300 layers and lead the market."

Earlier today, Samsung released its Q2 results, which were a mixed bag with many business units underperforming. However, none were doing as poorly as Samsung's memory business which made a loss of 4.36 trillion Won or around US$3.4 billion. Although not mentioned in the financial report, Reuters are reporting that Samsung is looking to cut production of NAND and DRAM further, as the publication is pointing out that Samsung's chipset business as a whole lost a staggering 8.9 trillion Won or US$7 billion. That said, the loss wasn't quite as bad as in the first quarter of the year and Samsung is expected to cut the loss in half for Q3.

In a statement to Reuters, Samsung said "Production cuts across the industry are likely to continue in the second half, and demand is expected to gradually recover as clients continue to destock their (chip) inventory." This suggests that the expected recovery isn't going to happen as soon as the DRAM and NAND manufacturers expected, as there simply isn't enough demand for either product. SK Hynix has already announced that it's cutting production a further five to 10 percent for NAND, but the company doesn't appear to have had quite as big losses as Samsung. For the time being, this is good news for consumers, as RAM and SSD pricing is about as low as it has ever been. However, with production cuts from all the three major manufacturers of DRAM and NAND, prices will most likely start going up soon, especially as Samsung is said to have depleted most of its inventories.

SK hynix Inc. today reported financial results for the second quarter of 2023. The company recorded revenue of 7.306 trillion won, operating loss of 2.882 trillion won (with operating margin of negative 39%), and net loss of 2.988 trillion won (with net margin of negative 41%) for the three-month period ended June 30, 2023.

"Amid an expansion in generative artificial intelligence (AI) market, which has largely been centered on ChatGPT, demand for AI server memory has increased rapidly," the company said. "As a result, sales of premium products such as HBM3 and DDR5 increased, leading to a 44% sequential increase in revenue for the second quarter, while operating loss narrowed by 15%."

In keeping with Framework's philosophy, the Framework Laptop 16 has socketed memory and storage, making it easy for you to choose what you need on day one and upgrade to more any time later. Our pre-built configurations have set combinations of memory and storage, while on DIY Edition, you can choose any of the modules we offer in the Marketplace or bring your own if you prefer. We've taken both memory and storage to the next level on Framework Laptop 16. For memory, we've created new semi-custom Framework-branded DDR5-5600 modules. For storage, we have two M.2 slots, as well as the ability to add two more in the Expansion Bay for colossal storage capacity.

One core challenge we aimed to solve for memory on the Framework Laptop 16 was being able to offer the same modules for pre-built systems, DIY Edition, and the Framework Marketplace. Historically, we needed to source separate "OEM" modules from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron for use in our factory, and "Retail" modules from Crucial to offer in DIY Edition and the Marketplace. Instead, we worked with memory maker ADATA to create custom-label modules that we can use across all areas. Currently, we're leveraging SK Hynix DDR5-5600 memory chips for these modules, but may use other chips that meet the performance bar in the future as well.

New research from Omdia reveals that the semiconductor market declined in revenue for a fifth straight quarter in the first quarter of 2023. This is the longest recorded period of decline since Omdia began tracking the market in 2002. Revenue in 1Q23 settled at $120.5B, down 9% from 4Q22. The semiconductor market is cyclical, and this prolonged decline follows the upsurge as the market grew to record revenues in each quarter between 4Q20 through 4Q21 following increased demand from the global pandemic.

The memory and MPU market are major areas of the semiconductor market that are contributing to the decline. The MPU market in 1Q23 was $13.1B, just 65% of its size in 1Q22 when it was $20B. The memory market fared worse, with 1Q23 coming in at $19.3B, just 44% of the market in 1Q22 when it was $43.6B. The combined MPU and memory markets declined 19% in 1Q23, dragging the market down to the 9% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) decline.