SK Hynix unveils world's first 96-layer 512 Gb 4D NAND flash chip

SK Hynix 96-layer 512 Gb 4D NAND chips (Source: SK Hynix)

SK Hynix managed to beat Samsung and Toshiba once again in being the first one to unveil a flash memory product. This time, it is the world's first 96-layer 512 Gb 4D NAND flash chip. Mass production will start before the end of the year and the first products to use the new chips should show up in the first quarter of 2019.

by Codrut Nistor, 2018/11/06

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SK Hynix is back with a new NAND Flash chip that will enter the mass production stage before the end of the year. The new chip is the world's first 96-layer 512 Gb 4D NAND Flash, and it involves quite a few technologies: a 3D CTF (Charge Trap Flash) design paired with PUC (Peri Under Cell), as well as rather traditional TLC (Triple-Level Cell) arrays.

The chip is the industry's first one that brings together 3D CTF and PUC, SK Hynix naming this product "CTF-based 4D NAND Flash" to separate it from the existing 3D NAND Flash solutions. In terms of performance, Hynix unveiled the following details:

industry-leading 64 KB bandwidth
I/O speed up to 1,200 Mbps at 1.2 V
30 percent higher write and 25 read performance compared to the 72-layer 512 Gb 3D NAND
30 percent smaller chip size and 49 percent bit productivity per wafer increase vs. the 72-layer 512 Gb 3D NAND

In the future, the company expects to introduce 1 TB SSDs with Hynix controllers and UFS 3.0 solutions, as well as 96-layer 1 Tb TLC and QLC (Quad-Level Cell) chips. All these should arrive in 2019.