SK Hynix, a leading South Korean memory and storage chip maker, recently announced that they have introduced their latest NAND chip component that comes with 321 semiconductor layers, which houses 1Tb (1 terabit) of storage.
Previously, SK Hynix was the record holder for producing NAND chips with 238 layers, and with the introduction of this latest NAND chip, they are the first memory and storage chip manufacturer with NAND that has more than 300 layers.
SK Hynix has developed a new material with low stress values that allows this 321-layer NAND to be developed with other technologies. What is interesting about this NAND is that apart from introducing a much larger SSD storage volume, it also comes with a 10 percent more efficient power consumption and a 12 percent higher data transfer rate.
For now, SK Hynix says that these NAND chips are expected to be used first for AI data center storage that requires high performance, but more efficient power consumption.
SK Hynix also says that they have already started mass-producing these NAND chips, and will start marketing them to their customers around mid-2025.