"In the DRAM sector, Hynix, which focuses its production on 44-nano DRAM products, aims to finish its development of 38-nano products within this year for mass production early next year," a company spokesman said.
"Hynix is now operating its product portfolio stably with the sales ratio of specialty DRAM, including server, graphic, consumer, and mobile DRAMs, which can create consistant profits, standing at about 60 percent," he said.
In the NAND flash sector, Hynix started to mass produce 26-nano NAND flash products beginning last August. The spokesman said. "Hynix is now leading the market with high value-added NAND flash products, which have feature not found in goods produced by the overseas competitors."
The high function NAND flash refers to the NAND flash equipped with the error check & correction (ECC) function and controller. This product is expected to be used for smartphones and tablet PCs. Noting that Hynix is building a product, called "E2 NAND," with 32-nano 32GB capacity, he said that Hynix will complete the development of 26-nano 64GB E2 NAND for mass production in 2011.
Introduction of 26-nano NAND flash chips
Hynix was able to begin production of 64-gigabit NAND flash chips by applying a finer 26-nanometer processing technology, a move that is expected to pave the way for the chipmaker to regain a competitive edge in the industry.
The company has also developed a NAND flash solution by teaming up with Israeli semiconductor company Anobit Technologies. The new solution is the combination of Hynix's NAND flash and controller patented by Anobit, minimizing data errors and extending the data-keeping period.
The controller is the key component for NAND-put devices. Its role is handling the stable operation of NAND flash chips, while improving the stability of the overall system of NAND flash products. 26-nanometer 64-gigabit NAND flash memory has enhanced the production efficiency by 60 percent compared to those of 32-gigabit with 30-nanometer technology.
"The company is planning to boost the monthly production output of the advanced chips to 80,000 units by the end of this year, compared with 45,000 units earlier in the year at its NAND-only 12-inch wafer manufacturing line - M11 - in Cheongju, a provincial city," he said.
"Meanwhile, chips will be used in high-end mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet-style PCs, that need big data capacity and faster processing," he explained.
NAND inventories levels remain low, aided by soaring demand from mobile device manufactures. In fact, the inventory to sales ratio for NAND vendors dropped to a six-year low during April-June.
Development of 44-nano DDR3 DRAM
Hynix developed the world's first 1-gigabit dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip, using 44-nanometer technology, in February 2009. The company started the mass production of the 1-gigabit DDR3 DRAM chips in the forth quarter of last year. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.
"We hope overall productivity of the new DDR3 DRAM product will be 50 percent greater than existing 54-nanometer technology and will also lower production costs," the spokesman said.
"DDR3 DRAM is a random access memory technology used for high bandwidth storage of working data on a computer or other digital electronic device. The new product significantly minimizes current leakage and further reduces overall power consumption, with a maximum speed of 2133 megabits per second," he said.