Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
SK hynix mass produces new smartphone DRAM
SK hynix's 18-gigabyte LPDDR5 mobile DRAM / Courtesy of SK hynix
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
SK hynix is making inroads into memory chips for the premium smartphone market after starting mass production of a new smartphone DRAM that has the largest capacity in the industry.
In a statement released on Monday, SK said it began mass producing the LPDDR5 mobile DRAM with a capacity of 18 gigabytes (GB).
As its latest product has faster data-processing speed, more temporary data storage capacity and better power efficiency, SK hynix said the 18GB product will be equipped in high-priced smartphones to support an optimal environment for games with high-resolution images and high-quality videos.
Also, SK was expecting its LPDDR5 DRAM will be increasingly used for premium phones as applications will continue expanding to include the latest technologies, such as ultra-high-performance cameras and artificial intelligence (AI).
“This product will improve the processing speed and image quality by expanding the temporary data storage space as the capacity increases compared to the previous 16GB product,” a company official said.
It added its LPDDR5 DRAM has pin speed of up to 6,400 megabits per second (Mbps), around 20 percent faster than exiting LPDDR DRAMs that run at up to 5,500 Mbps. The product is also capable of transferring 10 full-HD movies per second.
The company supplied its very first products in ASUS' upcoming gaming smartphone, Republic of Gamers (ROG) 5.
With the new mobile DRAM, SK Hynix is set to improve its presence in the premium smartphone market. “SK hynix expects smartphone makers could deliver smartphones with more advanced performance than the previous generation,” the firm said.
The LPDDR5 DRAM is expected to become SK hynix's major cash-cow product as more 5G-supported smartphones will adopt larger and faster memory chips.
Market tracker Omdia said the demand for LPDDR5 DRAMs accounted for about 10 percent of the entire mobile DRAM market in 2020, but the share is estimated to exceed 50 percent by 2023.
Industry analysts said SK hynix is counting on the bullish memory chip market with its technological capabilities. Thanks to the tight supply and increasing demand for memory chip-embedded corporate servers and other digital devices, the global semiconductor industry is entering a super-cycle with more devices increasingly requiring more chips.
SK hynix is forecast to post an operating profit of 1.3 trillion won ($1.15 billion) in the first quarter.
As more servers and smartphones will be produced starting in the second quarter, the demand for DRAM and other memory chips will also increase, helping the company generate greater profits. The market consensus predicts SK hynix's second-quarter operating profit to hit around 2.5 trillion won.