SK Hynix unveils industry’s first 10-nanometer DDR5, aims for top spot

SK Hynix Inc., the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker after Samsung Electronics Co., is the dominant player in the sought-after high-bandwidth memory (HBM) segment amid the AI boom.

The SK Group affiliate now aims for the top spot in the overall DRAM market by advancing its chip processing technology faster than its rivals.

The South Korean chipmaker said on Thursday it has developed the industry’s first 16 gigabit (Gb) DDR5 built using its 1c node – the sixth generation of the 10-nanometer process technology.

SK Hynix is the first memory maker to announce the use of the 1c or 10 nm-class process technology to produce DDR5 DRAM, leaving rivals such as Samsung and Micron Technology Inc. technologically behind.

“The degree of difficulty to advance the shrinking process of the 10 nm-range DRAM technology has grown over tech generations, but we have become the industry’s first to overcome the technological limitations, following our industry-leading 1b technology, or the fifth-generation 10 nm node,” the company said in a statement.

SK Hynix said it will be ready for mass production of the 1c DDR5 by the end of this year to start volume shipment next year.

DDR5, NEW DRAM STANDARD

In May 2023, Samsung said it had begun mass production of 16 Gb DDR5 DRAM chips, using a 12-nanometer process node.

DDR5, short for double data rate 5, is the next-generation DRAM chip, boasting faster speed and higher density with reduced power consumption compared to previous DDR4 chips. The latest memory is suitable for data-intensive supercomputing, artificial intelligence and machine learning applications.

With exponential data growth, DDR5 is becoming the new standard in the DRAM segment.

Such chips are used for high-performance data centers as well as machine learning platforms that enhance the AI and super-computing performance level.

SK Hynix became the industry’s first chipmaker to release DDR5 DRAM in October 2020.

Last year, the company said it is using the 1b tech to mass-produce 64 gigabyte (GB) DDR 5 server DRAM following performance verification tests with Intel Corp.

IMPROVEMENTS

In the chipmaking process, nanometer refers to the circuitry size of the transistors that can be packed on a chip. The lower the nanometer number, the more advanced the technology, promising a faster computing speed, higher performance and lower power use.

SK Hynix’s latest 1c DDR5 using a 10 nm process node runs at the speed of 8 gigabits per second (Gbps), 14% faster than its previous model. Power consumption has improved by over 9%, it said.

SK Hynix said it expects the adoption of its 1c DDR5 DRAM to help data centers reduce their electricity costs by up to 30%.

“We are committed to providing differentiated values to our customers by applying the 1c technology equipped with the best performance and cost competitiveness to our major next-generation products including HBM, LPDDR6 and GDDR7,” said Kim Jong-hwan, head of DRAM Development at SK. “We will work towards maintaining our leadership in the DRAM space and positioning as the most trusted AI memory solution provider.”

The company also plans to apply its 1c technology to manufacture HBM4E, or the seventh-generation HBM chip, from 2026.

Write to Eui-Myung Park at uimyung@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.