SK hynix, Sandisk kick off standardization of HBF

SK hynix’s Icheon Campus in Gyeonggi Province / Courtesy of SK hynix

SK hynix and Sandisk have teamed up for the worldwide standardization of high-bandwidth flash (HBF), which is seen as a brand new breakthrough for advancing synthetic intelligence (AI) accelerators.

SK hynix stated Thursday it hosted a kick-off occasion for the HBF Spec Standardization Consortium at flash reminiscence large Sandisk’s headquarters in Milpitas, California.

The 2 sides will arrange a devoted workforce to work on HBF standardization underneath the Open Compute Challenge, the world’s largest group for sharing information heart product designs and business practices.

“Along with Sandisk, we’ll set up HBF as an business customary and construct a basis for the complete AI ecosystem to develop collectively,” SK hynix stated.

HBF is a next-generation flash reminiscence chip structure for high-performance storage that might be vital for AI inference.

Reminiscence, principally DRAM chips resembling high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM), serves as a quick, short-term and unstable workspace for energetic information and functions. Storage, largely primarily based on NAND flash reminiscence together with solid-state drives (SSDs), features as a non-volatile repository, retaining recordsdata and apps at bigger capability however slower speeds.

The significance of NAND flash has been rising quickly in AI accelerators, as AI providers more and more shift towards inference, which requires quick and frequent entry to massive volumes of saved information to ship real-time outcomes.

SK hynix stated HBF might be positioned between HBM and SSDs, bridging the hole between HBM’s quick efficiency and SSDs’ storage capability, securing each scalability and energy effectivity required for AI inference. By deploying HBF, information heart operators are anticipated to scale back whole value of possession.

Business officers anticipate HBF may very well be commercialized in late 2027 or early 2028, whereas the demand for complete reminiscence options that features HBM and HBF will totally develop round 2030.

SK hynix stated it’s going to push forward with the standardization and commercialization of HBF together with Sandisk.

“By means of HBF standardization, we’ll set up a cooperative framework and create new worth by presenting an optimized reminiscence structure for purchasers and companions within the AI period,” SK hynix Chief Growth Officer Ahn Hyun stated.