SK Hynix develops advanced 238-layer 4D NAND storage chip

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South Korea's SK Hynix said it has developed its most advanced NAND flash chip made up of 238 layers of triple level memory cells.

The chips are for use in PC storage devices and later smartphones and servers, the world's second-largest memory chip maker said, with mass production expected in the first half of next year.

Samples of a 238-layer 4G NAND product with 512 gigabyte capacity are shipping currently to select SK Hynix customers.

One terabyte 238-layer products will be provided by SK Hynix for solid state drive storage next year.

Unveiled at the Flash Memory Summit 2022 in Santa Clara, California, SK Hynix described the new 4D NAND memory technology as the most layered and smallest in area in the world.

The announcement follows United States rival semiconductor maker Micron Technology announcing last week it had begun shipping a 232-layer NAND chip.

SK Hynix said the new 238-layer chip boasts a 50 per cent improvement in data transfer speed over previous generation chips, hitting 2.4 Gbps.

Power efficiency has been improved as well, the energy consumed for data reading cut by 21 per cent.

SK Hynix and Solidigm, the new name of Intel's NAND business which SK acquired, hold a combined 18 per cent share of the NAND flash market.

It is behind Samsung Electronics which holds 35.3 per cent of the market, and Kioxia with 18.9 per cent, according to first-quarter data from TrendForce.