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SK Hynix Lays Out Plans for 2017: 10nm-Class DRAM, 72-Layer 3D NAND
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SK Hynix Lays Out Plans for 2017: 10nm-Class DRAM, 72-Layer 3D NAND

SK Hynix this week announced financial results for its fiscal year 2016 and also revealed general plans for 2017. As expected, the company intends to start volume production of new types of memory and expand production capacities. What is noteworthy is that the company will primarily invest in the expansion of NAND flash manufacturing capacities, rather than the expansion of DRAM production, in the short-term future.

DRAM: 21 nm Ramping, 18 nm(?) on Track for 2H 2017

SK Hynix began to make DRAM using its 21 nm fabrication process in late 2015. The manufacturer has been gradually expanding usage of the technology as well as improving its yields since then. By now, SK Hynix makes a wide range of its products (including mainstream DRAM, mobile DRAM and specialized memory) using its 21 nm manufacturing process. This week the company confirmed that it intends to start volume production of DRAM using its 10 nm-class process technology (which industry experts believe is 18 nm) this year.

Just like other memory makers, SK Hynix plans to be conservative about its DRAM capital expenditures in 2017 and at present the company does not plan to undertake any significant capacity expansions. In the meantime, further increase of DRAM production using the 21 nm fabrication process and the start of 18 nm DRAM volume ramp in the second half of 2017 will automatically boost SK Hynix’s DRAM bit output — as memory cells get smaller, it is possible to produce more bits using one 300 mm wafer.

Meanwhile, analysts from TrendForce believe that DRAM bit demand in 2017 will surpass 20% year-over-year, whereas DRAM bit supply by various makers will increase by around 19% YoY. The imbalance between demand and supply is projected to create shortages of DRAM as well as keep prices at high levels. Apart from PCs, there are two more factors that are going to raise demand for memory: first, Intel’s upcoming Xeon platform ‘Purley’ is expected to drive demand; and second, higher-end Google Android-based smartphones are expected to receive a memory upgrade with top-of-the-range models holding 8 GB of LPDDR4/LPDDR4X.

NAND: 72-Layer 512 Gb Chips Due in Late 2017

Demand for NAND flash has been steadily increasing in the recent years because the industry is increasing output of NAND-based devices (e.g., smartphones, SSDs, consumer electronics, etc.) as well as its content per box (e.g., the entry-level Apple iPhone 7 now contains 32 GB of storage, up from 16 GB). To meet the growing demand, manufacturers expand production capacities and introduce higher-capacity 3D NAND memory chips. Just like its competitors, SK Hynix plans to boost production of NAND in general and launch new ICs.

SK Hynix started to mass-produce its 36-layer 128 Gb 3D MLC NAND (which it calls 3D-V2) chips in 2015 and these ICs have been primarily used for various removable storage products. Last year, the company also started to make 48-layer 3D NAND (3D-V3) ICs that are to be used for various types of memory cards, flash drives, embedded storage and SSDs. With its third-gen 3D NAND, SK Hynix focuses on 256 Gb (32 GB) TLC ICs. The latter are used to build various NAND packages with 256 Gb, 512 Gb, 1024 Gb, 2048 Gb and even 4096 Gb capacities, which can be used for a variety of applications.

Later this year SK Hynix intends to start volume production of 72-layer 3D TLC NAND (3D-V4) memory and this is where things start to get interesting. Initially, SK Hynix intends to produce 256 Gb 3D TLC ICs and these are going to be available already in Q2 2017, according to the company’s product catalog. Later on, sometimes in Q4, the company plans to introduce 512 Gb 3D TLC ICs (64 GB), which will help it to significantly increase capacities of SSDs and other devices featuring NAND flash. What is important about SK Hynix’s fourth-gen 3D NAND is that it will feature block size of 13.5 MB, which will increase the performance of such ICs compared to 3D-V3 and 3D-V2 that have a block size of 9 MB. At this point, we do not know whether SK Hynix intends to increase interface speed of its 512 Gb 3D-V4 ICs to compensate lower parallelism in lower-capacity SSDs, like Samsung did with its high-capacity 64-layer 3D V-NAND chips. What we do know is that SK Hynix’s catalog already includes NAND multi-chip packages of 8192 Gb capacity (1 TB) that will enable high-capacity SSDs in smaller form-factors (e.g., 2 GB single-sided M.2). Meanwhile, 64 GB NAND flash chips may force SK Hynix and its partners to abandon low-capacity SSDs (i.e., 120/128 GB) unless there is sufficient demand.

M14 Fab Gets Second Layer Floor

As reported earlier, SK Hynix also plans to start using the upper floor of its M14 facility to produce NAND memory this year. The company this week confirmed the plan, but revealed no specifics.

In any case, as the manufacturer continues to ramp up the M14 fab and its NAND flash output is increasing. Since SK Hynix is also gradually switching to 256 Gb (and 512 Gb starting from Q4), its NAND bit output is also gradually growing, which enables it to sell higher-capacity storage solutions.

SK Hynix also plans to start cleanroom expansion of the C2 fab in Wuxi, China, which will cost the company around $790 million and will take nearly two years. The C2 manufacturing facility is used to make DRAM and since manufacturing technologies involve more complex and lengthening production cycles, the cleanroom expansion will enable SK Hynix to maintain the current output of the C2 into the future. Keep in mind that the work is expected to be finished in April 2019, so do not expect the expansion to have any short-term effects on memory prices.

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SK Hynix Lays Out Plans for 2017: 10nm-Class DRAM, 72-Layer 3D NAND
  • Comments are Closed

SK Hynix Lays Out Plans for 2017: 10nm-Class DRAM, 72-Layer 3D NAND

SK Hynix this week announced financial results for its fiscal year 2016 and also revealed general plans for 2017. As expected, the company intends to start volume production of new types of memory and expand production capacities. What is noteworthy is that the company will primarily invest in the expansion of NAND flash manufacturing capacities, rather than the expansion of DRAM production, in the short-term future.

DRAM: 21 nm Ramping, 18 nm(?) on Track for 2H 2017

SK Hynix began to make DRAM using its 21 nm fabrication process in late 2015. The manufacturer has been gradually expanding usage of the technology as well as improving its yields since then. By now, SK Hynix makes a wide range of its products (including mainstream DRAM, mobile DRAM and specialized memory) using its 21 nm manufacturing process. This week the company confirmed that it intends to start volume production of DRAM using its 10 nm-class process technology (which industry experts believe is 18 nm) this year.

Just like other memory makers, SK Hynix plans to be conservative about its DRAM capital expenditures in 2017 and at present the company does not plan to undertake any significant capacity expansions. In the meantime, further increase of DRAM production using the 21 nm fabrication process and the start of 18 nm DRAM volume ramp in the second half of 2017 will automatically boost SK Hynix’s DRAM bit output — as memory cells get smaller, it is possible to produce more bits using one 300 mm wafer.

Meanwhile, analysts from TrendForce believe that DRAM bit demand in 2017 will surpass 20% year-over-year, whereas DRAM bit supply by various makers will increase by around 19% YoY. The imbalance between demand and supply is projected to create shortages of DRAM as well as keep prices at high levels. Apart from PCs, there are two more factors that are going to raise demand for memory: first, Intel’s upcoming Xeon platform ‘Purley’ is expected to drive demand; and second, higher-end Google Android-based smartphones are expected to receive a memory upgrade with top-of-the-range models holding 8 GB of LPDDR4/LPDDR4X.

NAND: 72-Layer 512 Gb Chips Due in Late 2017

Demand for NAND flash has been steadily increasing in the recent years because the industry is increasing output of NAND-based devices (e.g., smartphones, SSDs, consumer electronics, etc.) as well as its content per box (e.g., the entry-level Apple iPhone 7 now contains 32 GB of storage, up from 16 GB). To meet the growing demand, manufacturers expand production capacities and introduce higher-capacity 3D NAND memory chips. Just like its competitors, SK Hynix plans to boost production of NAND in general and launch new ICs.

SK Hynix started to mass-produce its 36-layer 128 Gb 3D MLC NAND (which it calls 3D-V2) chips in 2015 and these ICs have been primarily used for various removable storage products. Last year, the company also started to make 48-layer 3D NAND (3D-V3) ICs that are to be used for various types of memory cards, flash drives, embedded storage and SSDs. With its third-gen 3D NAND, SK Hynix focuses on 256 Gb (32 GB) TLC ICs. The latter are used to build various NAND packages with 256 Gb, 512 Gb, 1024 Gb, 2048 Gb and even 4096 Gb capacities, which can be used for a variety of applications.

Later this year SK Hynix intends to start volume production of 72-layer 3D TLC NAND (3D-V4) memory and this is where things start to get interesting. Initially, SK Hynix intends to produce 256 Gb 3D TLC ICs and these are going to be available already in Q2 2017, according to the company’s product catalog. Later on, sometimes in Q4, the company plans to introduce 512 Gb 3D TLC ICs (64 GB), which will help it to significantly increase capacities of SSDs and other devices featuring NAND flash. What is important about SK Hynix’s fourth-gen 3D NAND is that it will feature block size of 13.5 MB, which will increase the performance of such ICs compared to 3D-V3 and 3D-V2 that have a block size of 9 MB. At this point, we do not know whether SK Hynix intends to increase interface speed of its 512 Gb 3D-V4 ICs to compensate lower parallelism in lower-capacity SSDs, like Samsung did with its high-capacity 64-layer 3D V-NAND chips. What we do know is that SK Hynix’s catalog already includes NAND multi-chip packages of 8192 Gb capacity (1 TB) that will enable high-capacity SSDs in smaller form-factors (e.g., 2 GB single-sided M.2). Meanwhile, 64 GB NAND flash chips may force SK Hynix and its partners to abandon low-capacity SSDs (i.e., 120/128 GB) unless there is sufficient demand.

M14 Fab Gets Second Layer Floor

As reported earlier, SK Hynix also plans to start using the upper floor of its M14 facility to produce NAND memory this year. The company this week confirmed the plan, but revealed no specifics.

In any case, as the manufacturer continues to ramp up the M14 fab and its NAND flash output is increasing. Since SK Hynix is also gradually switching to 256 Gb (and 512 Gb starting from Q4), its NAND bit output is also gradually growing, which enables it to sell higher-capacity storage solutions.

SK Hynix also plans to start cleanroom expansion of the C2 fab in Wuxi, China, which will cost the company around $790 million and will take nearly two years. The C2 manufacturing facility is used to make DRAM and since manufacturing technologies involve more complex and lengthening production cycles, the cleanroom expansion will enable SK Hynix to maintain the current output of the C2 into the future. Keep in mind that the work is expected to be finished in April 2019, so do not expect the expansion to have any short-term effects on memory prices.

Related Reading:

QNAP at CES 2017 - Thunderbolt 3 and Xeon D NAS Units, Residential Gateways, and More
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QNAP at CES 2017 – Thunderbolt 3 and Xeon D NAS Units, Residential Gateways, and More

As part of my usual CES vendor visits, I caught up with QNAP and took a look at the new products and QTS features slated to enter the market over the next couple of quarters. The products that caught my eye included a new series of Thunderbolt-enabled NAS units, a couple of products targeting the IoT / residential wireless gateway space, a NAS unit with an optical drive slot, and a 16-bay Xeon D NAS in the tower form factor. On the software side, QNAP also demonstrated a new QVR Pro Surveillance Station integrating the Surveillance Station package into the QTS OS along with a host of improvements. The DJ2 Live live-stream broadcast platform was also in action at the booth. I won’t go much into the software announcements – Interested readers can refer to the press release, and there really is not much to add beyond that on those aspects.

Thunderbolt NAS Units

We last looked at QNAP’s offerings in our coverage of their TVS-x82T launch back in May 2016. One of the questions I had asked at the launch event was about the non-availability of Thunderbolt 3 (the TVS-x82T series came with Thunderbolt 2 ports). At CES 2017, QNAP introduced the first set of NAS units with Thunderbolt 3 support – with the TVS-1282T3 being the flagship in that segment. Sporting 8x 3.5″ bays and 4x 2.5″ bays along with 2x M.2 SATA SSD slots, the unit can be configured with either a Core i5-7500 or Core i7-7700 CPU. Available I/Os include 2x Thunderbolt 2 as well as 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports, 2x 10GBASE-T and 4x GbE network links, five USB 3.0 ports (one in front, four in the back), two microphone inputs, and two speaker outputs as well as a 3.5mm audio line-out. There are four SODIMM slots, allowing end-users to configure the system with up to 64GB of RAM.

QNAP also introduced the 2.5″-only TVS-882ST models – The TVS-882ST2 has Thunderbolt 2 ports, while the TVS-882ST3 has Thunderbolt 3 ports. Unlike the flagship TVS-1282T3, these units use the high-end Skylake mobile CPUs (Core i7-6700HQ or Core i5-6442EQ). The brochure for the TVS-882ST series also brings out the two Thunderbolt usage scenarios – as a direct-attached storage unit (with the expansion units allowing as much as 400TB to be accessed directly), or a 10Gb switch (with the virtual switch feature that can act as a Thunderbolt to Ethernet converter) to create a 10Gbps interface for the system connecting to it. The second feature makes a separate Thunderbolt to 10Gbps converter unnecessary.

Detailed specifications of the units in both series, as well as some of interesting information from QNAP’s product brochures are reproduced in the gallery at the end of this piece.

NAS with Blu-ray Writer Support

The TVS-882BR is a 8-bay NAS with a SATA expansion bay that can either support two slim optical drives or one 5.25″ optical drive. It is based on a Kaby Lake platform, supports PCIe NVMe SSDs and also two M.2 SATA SSD slots. There are three PCIe 3.0 expansion slots and three display outputs.

The device is intended for use-cases where data on the NAS needs frequent backing up to optical media. The specifications of the various members in this lineup are summarized in the gallery at the end of this piece.

16-bay Xeon D NAS

The TS-1685 lineup is one of the most comprehensive set of Xeon D-based COTS NAS units in the market today. There are nine different tower models carrying either the Xeon D-1521 or the Xeon D-1531, with choice of either ECC or non-ECC DDR4 RAM. Based on demand, QNAP indicated that versions using Xeon D-1548 could also make it to the market. Some units carry a 550W internal PSU (instead of 250W), and can support a discrete GPU such as the AMD Radeon RX480. This is particularly useful for GPU compute, as well as a 3D accelerator for virtual machines.

There are a total of twelve 3.5″ bays and four 2.5″ bays. On the board, there are six M.2 SATA SSD slots (supporting 2242 to 22110 form factors) with heat sinks on top as well as thermal pads at the bottom. There are four GbE ports and two 10GBASE-T  ports. The three spare PCIe expansion slots (two 3.0 x8, one 2.0 x4) can be used for 10/40 GbE adapters, discrete GPUs, PCIe NVMe SSDs or USB 3.1 Gen 2 cards.

QNAP is marketing the TS-1685 as a Super NAS, and the above specifications completely justify the tag. More details are available in the pages from the brochure included in the gallery at the end of this piece.

Intel AnyWAN Designs – QBoat Sunny IoT Server and TGX-150 Gateway NAS

QNAP had two products at CES that were a bit of a departure from the traditional NAS units. Even though they have been focusing on IoT from a NAS perspective for some time, the IoT-focused QBoat Sunny caught us by surprise. Running QTS Lite (a stripped down version of the QTS NAS OS), it is meant as a platform for IoT developers to create a local IoT / home automation controller.

Synology is currently shipping their second generation wireless router, the RT 2600ac. Even though they are not trying to bring cutting-edge products to the market, they seem to have got a toehold in the market. In the set of NAS vendors who are trying to move to the larger consumer Wi-Fi router space, QNAP is throwing its hat in the ring with the TGX-150. It looks like a traditional Wi-Fi router (1x WAN, 4x LAN) and has Intel radios for a 802.11ac MU-MIMO Wi-Fi access point. This device also runs QTS Lite.

The interesting aspect of both of these products is the usage of the Intel AnyWAN GRX750 network processor / SoC. To the best of our knowledge, this is Intel’s first design win in the consumer Wi-Fi router space (one traditionally dominated by SoCs from Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Mediatek).

The detailed specifications of the QBoat Sunny and the TGX-150 are included in the gallery below (along with the specifications of all the new product lines discussed above).

QNAP’s CES 2017 announcements make it clear that it is going to be difficult for any other vendor to match the wide range of hardware platforms they have on offer. It is surprising that no other NAS vendor has tried to attack the NAS / DAS / iSCSI SAN combo market that QNAP is targeting with their Thunderbolt NAS units. Multimedia-editing production houses can definitely use those types of units effectively. On the IoT / residential gateway side, QNAP’s use of an Intel platform is surprising, given the prevalence of ARM-based SoCs in that market. However, without concrete pricing information or performance numbers, it is difficult to draw conclusions. The Intel AnyWAN platform seems great on paper for the applications. It might well turn out to be a credible competitor to the established platforms in the market.