[Courtesy of Hynix]
SK Hynix reported poor earnings for the first quarter on Tuesday but unveiled plans to boost sales by starting mass production of 3D NAND flash chips in the second half of this year.
A senior official told a conference call that the second largest South Korean chipmaker would focus on the production of second-generation 3D NAND chips with a monthly production capacity of 30,000. Such chips are mainly used in smartphones and storage devices.
"The second generation 36-layer 1 terabyte (TB) solid state drive (SSD) is certified for distribution and we are in preparation to be able to manufacture 20,000~30,000 drives per month from the latter half of this year." the official said.
The company also said it aims to complete the development of third-generation 48-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips by the end of this year.
Earlier, SK Hynix reported its net profit fell to 448 billion won (390 million US dollars) in the first quarter from 1.3 trillion won a year earlier, due to falling microchip prices and weak demand for computers and mobile devices.
Operating profit nosedived 65 percent on-year to 561.8 billion won, marking the lowest level since the first quarter of 2013. Sales fell 24 percent to 3.66 trillion won.
The company also said it would start mass production of high-speed 20-nano class DRAMs in the second half of this year.
The official added this year's investments would be smaller than last year's 6.6 trillion won in view of a weak economic outlook.
"Even though the investments in securing DRAM manufacturing capacity are to be reduced, investments in research and development will be increased. Also, we will focus on the development of 10-nano class DRAMs."
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
