SK Hynix Unveils First Standard for Next-Generation HBF Memory

SK Hynix Inc. unveiled the first standard for High Bandwidth Flash, or HBF, a NAND flash-based next-generation storage technology developed with SanDisk, as it moves to seize an early lead in the emerging market. The company plans to use HBF to strengthen its position in next-generation AI memory as the spread of AI inference fuels demand for large-scale data processing.

SK Hynix introduced the first HBF standard on August 4 at FMS 2026, the world's largest memory technology conference, held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California. The company began collaborating with SanDisk in August 2025 and launched the HBF Consortium in February 2026 with participants including Google and Tenstorrent. The standard was unveiled six months after the consortium's launch.

HBF is memory for AI accelerators built by vertically stacking NAND, similar to DRAM-based High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM. It can store far more data than DRAM in the same area, making it a next-generation technology for handling surging data-processing needs as AI inference and agentic AI spread. NAND also retains data when power is turned off, improving power efficiency and enabling large-capacity memory at a more economical cost than DRAM.

The newly disclosed HBF standard stacks NAND dies in eight or 16 layers and supports capacity of up to 512 gigabytes. It defines three bandwidth tiers ranging from 0.4 terabytes per second to 3.0 terabytes per second. The standard adopts UCIe, an industry-standard processor interconnect, allowing flexible use across semiconductors including graphics processing units and central processing units.

At FMS 2026, SK Hynix also outlined a next-generation hierarchical memory architecture that links and optimizes DRAM-based HBM and NAND-based HBF within a single system. The company also unveiled for the first time a wafer and product for its 10th-generation, or V10, 375-layer 4D NAND, which is under development. The technology delivers 2.5 times the performance per watt of the previous generation and is optimized for data center environments. SK Hynix plans to begin mass production early next year of high-performance, high-capacity enterprise solid-state drives based on the technology.

Kim Chae-yeon, Hankyung.com reporter why29@hankyung.com