SK hynix to supply its latest mobile DRAM chip to Vivo

SEOUL: South Korean chipmaker SK hynix said on Monday it has started supplying its latest mobile DRAM chip to Chinese smartphone maker Vivo.

The 16-gigabyte packages of Low Power Double Data Rate 5 Turbo (LPDDR5T), developed in January, will be installed in Vivo's latest smartphone models, X100 and X100 Pro, along with Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek's next-generation mobile application processors (APs), according to SK hynix.

It is the first commercialisation of the LPDDR5T, known as the latest development in mobile DRAM technology following its predecessor, LPDDR5X, and the fastest mobile DRAM currently available, which can transfer 9.6 gigabits per second, reports Yonhap news agency.

To commercialise the cutting-edge chip, SK hynix has conducted performance verification with global AP manufacturers.

The company said it hopes the LPDDR5T chip will help the Korean company take the lead in the global premium chip market, leading the generation shift in the mobile DRAM sector.

The world's second-largest memory chip maker SK hynix had posted losses for the fourth consecutive quarter in the third quarter of this year but recovering demand for high-performance products helped narrow its operating deficit.

SK hynix said sales of its flagship products, including the AI memory HBM3 and high-capacity mobile DRAM, led to a 24 percent on-quarter increase in sales and a 38 per cent decrease in operating loss.

"As market demand for our high-performance memory products continued to grow, our operating performance has steadily improved after hitting the bottom in the first quarter," the company said in a statement late last month.

SK hynix makes most of its profits from selling memory chips. But the macroeconomic woes, including the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, inflation and rising interest rates, led consumers to tighten their spending on electronics that need such semiconductors.

In the coming quarters, the company said it will focus on high-performance products like high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips and fifth-generation DDR5 chips to meet rising demand from the AI-led chip boom.