Following development in August 2022, SK Hynix Inc. today stated that it has begun mass producing its 238-layer 4D NAND Flash memory and that a product compatibility test with a major smartphone maker is in progress.

"SK hynix has developed solution products for smartphones and client SSDs which are used as PC storage devices, adopting the 238-layer NAND technology, and has moved into mass production in May," the business claimed. We anticipate these products to contribute to an increase in profitability in the second half of the year given that the company has secured world-class competitiveness in pricing, performance, and quality for both 238-layer NAND and the 176-layer NAND of the preceding generation.

The manufacturing efficiency of the 238-layer product, the smallest NAND in terms of size, is 34% higher than that of the 176-layer product from the previous generation, which significantly improves cost competitiveness.

Additionally, the business is sure that it will be able to provide increased performance to the smartphone and PC consumers using this technology, as it has a data-transfer speed of 2.4Gb per second, a 50% improvement from the previous generation, and around 20% faster read and write speeds.

The 238-layer NAND product will be made available for smartphones once the product compatibility test with the major smartphone maker is finished. SK Hynix will then expand the technology across its product line, including PCIe 5.0* SSDs and high-capacity server SSDs, in the future.