SK Hynix's first 238-layer memory boasts 50% faster SSD speeds, but c'mon it's not really 4D is it?
pcgamer.comSK Hynix could be held as an everyday hero with its latest 238-layer 4D NAND Flash memoryt announcement. Why? Because it's promised to bring the flash new Flash memory straight to consumer SSDs for our home rigs.
Competitor, Micron, on the other hand, recently announced its own new 232-layer memory will be limited to enterprise machines on launch. Basically, the common folk's memory solution is set to be more impressive than what the corpos will be packing.
Enter the world's first 512Gb (that's gigabit, not gigabyte) triple level cell (TLC) 4D NAND flash memory—coming right to our desks some time in early 2023. SK Hynix has aimed for the highest NAND stack ever designed, after the company's successes with its 176-layer NAND memory solution, back in late 2020.
Although it's got 62 layers on its predecessor, the design still manages to fit into an impressively minimal form factor. In fact, it's the smallest NAND product we've seen, though SK Hynix has managed to improve on the current standard's power efficiency, data transfer speeds, and all-around productivity.
A SK Hynix newsroom release(opens in new tab) outlines the new design's overall productivity has increased by 34% over the previous generation's 176-layer model, along with 50% faster data-transfer speeds of 2.4Gb per second over the previous 1.6Gbps. It's also promising 1Tb versions next year—that's a mighty 128GB of storage on a single tiny chip.
The company has made some steady improvements compared to its last generational leap, with its 176-layer tech only touting a 33% increase to data-transfer(opens in new tab) speeds over its 128-layer technology.
'If you think about it, everything is 4D'—SK Hynix's marketing department, probably
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