- SK Hynix sets new milestone with 321-layer QLC NAND to PC SSDs
- Improvements and efficiency improvements come before Enterprise and AI Server’s roll -out
- Consumers will unlikely to see cheap SSDs with high capacity until costs fall forward
SK Hynix has confirmed that it has started mass production of its new 321-layer QLC NAND flash memory, making it the first in the industry to cross 300-layer threshold with QLC technology.
The company completed the development of the chip earlier in 2025 and says it plans to launch commercial products in the first half of 2026 when the customer’s validation is complete.
The chip has 2TB capacity per Die, twice as large as previous solutions.
Improvements of stream efficiency
To tackle the slower performance that often comes with QLC nand with higher density, SK Hynix expanded the number of aircraft within the chip from four to six.
This change allows for larger parallel treatment, which improves reading and writing speeds while power consumption is low.
The company says its data transfer rates are twice as fast compared to its previous QLC offering, with writing speeds up to 56% faster and reading the performance improved by 18 percent.
Streaming efficiency during writing operations has also increased by more than 23%, something that matters in large data environments where energy costs are closely monitored.
Although the long-term goal is to use the technology in Enterprise SSDs for data centers and Ultrahøj capacity storage aimed at AI servers, the company says PC SSDs will be the first products sent with the 321-layer chips.
This means that consumers can see benefits before corporate customers, although the original focus will not necessarily be at low cost of high capacity.
“With the start of mass production, we have strengthened our high capacity product portfolio and secured cost competitiveness,” said Jeong Woopyo, head of Nand Development.
“We will make a big leap forward as a full-stack AI memory provider, in line with the explosive growth of AI demand and high performance requirements in the data center market.”
SK Hynix also plans to use his stacking technology, which allows up to 32 matrixes in a package, in future ultra-capacity solutions. It expects this to be particularly important in AI-driven storage markets, where both density and efficiency are key sales sites.
While the arrival of this NAND is marking a big step towards larger, more affordable storage, cheap 8TB consumer SSDs will soon arrive due to high production costs, packaging complexity and validation cycles.
