SK Hynix is going to start mass-producing 3D NAND flash memories on the second floor its new facility called M14 that is located in Icheon. This will be the first time when it mass-produces 3D NAND flash memories at M14.
“We finished construction (cleanroom) for half of the second floor for NAND flash memories.” said Executive Director (CFO) Lee Myung-young of SK Hynix at 2017 1st quarter performance conference call that was held in the morning of the 25th. “We are currently preparing for production as equipment is brought in.” Executive Director Lee also said that construction for rest of the second floor will be finished by end of this year and that SK Hynix will decide what it is going to produce (NAND flash memory or DRAM) depending on market situation in second half of this year.
SK Hynix has been producing 36-layer MLC (Multi Level Cell, 2 bits per cell) 3D NAND flash memories followed by 48-layer TLC (Triple Level Cell, 3 bits per cell) 3D NAND flash memories at its facilities in Cheongju since last year. It is first going to mass-produce 48-layer products at M14 and is planning to mass-produce 72-layer 3D NAND flash memories when it passes certifications of its customers in second half of this year.
SK Hynix explained that when it mass-produces 3D NAND flash memories on full-scale fromM14 this year, there will be ‘bit cross over’ phenomenon at the end of this year when there will be more shipments of 3D NAND flash memories than shipments of 2D products.
SK Hynix made a surprising announcement of its performance for first quarter of this year by indicating that it made $5.57 billion (6.2895 trillion KRW), $2.18 billion (2.4676 trillion KRW), and $1.68 billion (1.8987 trillion KRW) in sales, operating profit, and net profit respectively.
Forecast of related markets is also bright. “Although increase rate for demands for DRAMs will slightly exceed 20% this year, it seems that increase rate of supplies will not catch up to number of demands due to reduction of abilities to make investments by entire industries.” said President Kim Joon-ho of SK Hynix who oversees management support. “While it is also observed that increase rate of for demands for NAND flash memories will be around beginning and middle-end of 30%, increase rate of supplies will somewhat fall short of increase rate for demands.” This indicates that prices will continue to go up due to lack of supplies.
“SK Hynix’s shipments of DRAMs this year will be similar to growth of DRAM markets (20%) while growth of shipments of NAND flash memories (30%) will be slightly lower than growth of NAND flash memory markets (beginning and middle-end of 30%).” said President Kim.
Meanwhile, it seems that SK Hynix’s first 10-nano DRAM (1x) will take up about 10% of overall production by end of this year when SK Hynix starts mass-producing it during second half of this year. It is predicted that this product will be established as the major product at the end of next year or first half following year at the earliest. “We are currently facing technical difficulties as we are moving from 20-nano DRAM to 10-nano DRAM.” said a representative for SK Hynix. “This is same for other companies as well.”
Staff Reporter Han, Juyeop | powerusr@etnews.com