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SK hynix has just announced the mass production of its 321-layer QLC NAND Flash “2 Tb” storage solution, which stacks up to 32 layers.
SK hynix’s 321-Layer QLC NAND Flash Expands Storage Capacities & Is Now in Full Mass Production
Press Release: SK hynix announced today that it has completed development of its 321-layer 2 Tb QLC NAND flash product and has begun mass production. This achievement marks the world’s first implementation of more than 300 layers using QLC technology, setting a new benchmark in NAND density. The company plans to release the product in the first half of next year following completion of global customer validation.
“With the start of mass production, we have significantly strengthened our high-capacity product portfolio and secured cost competitiveness,” said Jeong Woopyo, Head of NAND Development at SK hynix. “We will make a major leap forward as a full-stack AI memory provider, in line with the explosive growth in AI demand and high-performance requirements in the data center market.”
To maximize the cost competitiveness of its new product, SK hynix developed a 2 Tb device with double the capacity of existing solutions. To address potential performance degradation in large-capacity NAND, the company increased the number of planes, independent operation units within a chip, from 4 to 6. This enables greater parallel processing and significantly enhances simultaneous read performance.
As a result, the 321-layer QLC NAND delivers both higher capacity and improved performance compared to previous QLC products. Data transfer speed has doubled, write performance has improved by up to 56%, and read performance has improved by 18%. In addition, write power efficiency has increased by more than 23%, strengthening competitiveness in AI data centers where low power consumption is critical.
The company plans to apply its 321-layer NAND first to PC SSDs, before expanding to enterprise SSDs (eSSD) for data centers and UFS for smartphones. Leveraging its proprietary 32DP technology, which enables the simultaneous stacking of 32 NAND dies in a single package, SK hynix aims to enter the ultra-high-capacity eSSD market for AI servers by achieving twice the integration density.
