New Generations, New Technologies
A new generation of consumers demand a new technology. SK hynix is acutely aware of this. With decades of experience in the space, our talented members have learned first-hand just how rapidly trends, preferences and possibilities change the landscape around us. It’s as if the road we’re running is constantly being repaved, re-routed and renovated beneath our feet.
Rather than stop and stare, watching the road roll on without us, we keep moving ahead – regaining our balance along the way. SK hynix is making it on its own in the semiconductor downturn by strengthening the core competitiveness.
The Change is Quick – And So Are We
Our engineers, developers, researchers and strategists know how quickly the technology shifts and evolves, and how important it is for technology companies to respond quickly, carefully and agilely.
In SK hynix’s previous earnings reports in 2019, Vice President Jin-suk Cha said: “SK hynix plans to adjust production and investment operations to effectively cope with the market environment and external variables. In the midst of rapidly changing market conditions, we will focus on profit-oriented product mix operation and continuous product and technology development to quickly overcome the memory downturn.”
In our industry, the pace of change is incredibly rapid – and companies must be attuned to the shifting needs of its consumers. Our company carries an incredible influence in the memory market specifically – SK hynix alone is the second largest memory semiconductor manufacturer in global market – and is just as adept in adapting to demand and it is at informing it. Our position enables us to lead the industry in next-level thinking and innovation across categories.
Consider Our Pioneering Work on NAND and DRAM
Take a look at the rising rate of high-density SSD adoption in PCs. With this surge, we’ve seen that the density of the NAND is also increasing, particularly in the mobile market. The demand for mobile-oriented NAND is expected to increase as well since the trend of flagship smartphones, such as multiple camera adoption, would require more capacity. We’ve seen several instances of this very recently as top technology companies release their latest smartphones.
Furthermore, we have immense confidence in the long-term growth of the memory market. A huge influence comes from the mobile market, where NAND capacity differentiation continues to expand customer sales. As a result, high-capacity 3D NAND adoption rates are expected to continue to rise on smartphones globally. SK hynix is operating mainly on 72-layer 3D NAND and gradually increasing the portion of 96-layer in the second half of this year, focusing on sales of high-end smartphone and PCle SSD products.
Another example of rapid response at SK hynix has been our reaction to the recent downturn in DRAM demand as global trade friction has intensified, which led to conservative purchasing behavior by some customers. Our team is countering these uncertainties by responding mainly with mobile and PC DRAMs, where demand growth is relatively high, and by using technology migration without adding wafer capacity.
We plan to gradually reduce the production of 2Znm DRAM and expand the share of 1Xnm and 1Ynm instead, which reached mid-40% in Q2. SK hynix started selling 1Ynm computing products, and will increase the proportion of 1Ynm DRAM to early 10% by the end of this year. In addition, we intend to actively respond to the LPDDR5 and HBM2E DRAM markets, which are expected to grow considerably next year.
Earlier this year, SK hynix announced its HBM2E-based DRAM to satisfy the demand for increased performance, bringing the world’s fastest 460GB per second data processing speed. The product will be aimed at high-end machine learning, supercomputers and 5G network applications, and “continue to strengthen its [SK hynix’s] leadership in the premium DRAM market,” according to Jun-hyun Chun, Head of HBM Business Strategy.
SK hynix Keeps Changing the Game
These are just a few of the many ways in which SK hynix is changing the game. Revolution is at the core of all our products – and at the core of our entire business philosophy. We have a proven track record and are ready to bring our exceptional, high-performance, reliable products to more people in even bigger, bolder ways. SK hynix will continue to focus on our key technology competitiveness while developing next-generation technology to prepare for the upturn to come in the long term.
