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On 25 August, SK Hynix announced that its 321-layer 2Tb QLC NAND flash memory product has been developed and is now in mass production. This achievement marks the world's first application of QLC technology exceeding 300 layers, setting a new benchmark for NAND storage density. The company plans to officially launch the product in the first half of next year after completing global customer validation.

To enhance the cost competitiveness of the new product, SK Hynix has developed a 2Tb device, which doubles the capacity of existing solutions. To address potential performance degradation issues associated with high-capacity NAND, the company has increased the number of planes within the chip from 4 to 6. A plane is an independent operational unit within the chip, and this change enhances parallel processing capabilities, significantly improving synchronous read performance.

Compared to previous QLC products, the 321-layer QLC NAND offers significant improvements in both capacity and performance. Data transfer speeds have doubled, write performance has improved by up to 56%, and read performance has improved by 18%. Additionally, write power efficiency has improved by over 23%, further strengthening its competitiveness in the AI data centre sector, which demands extremely low power consumption.

It is understood that SK Hynix plans to first apply the 321-layer NAND to PC solid-state drives, followed by enterprise-grade solid-state drives (eSSD) for data centres and UFS for smartphones. With its proprietary 32DP technology, which enables the simultaneous stacking of 32 NAND chips within a single package, SK Hynix aims to enter the ultra-high-capacity eSSD market by achieving double the integration density, thereby serving AI servers.

‘With the start of mass production, we have significantly strengthened our capabilities in high-capacity product portfolios and ensured cost competitiveness,’ said Jeong Woopyo, head of SK Hynix's NAND development department. ‘As the data centre market experiences explosive growth in AI demand and rising performance requirements, we will achieve a major leap forward as a full-stack AI storage provider.’