SK hynix will add tiny H-TPU cores to SSD controllers

The change is meant to keep future drives moving as SSD bandwidth and controller CPU demands keep climbing.

SK hynix says it will add its own tiny controller cores, called H-TPU, to future NAND products to offload routine SSD work as PCIe speeds and IOPS demands keep rising. The company says these cores use a four-stage in-order design, take about 2.5% of the power and around 4% of the area of a general-purpose CPU core, and are meant to handle repetitive I/O while the main Arm CPU keeps control and exception handling. SK hynix presented the plan at ISOCC 2026 through VP Koo In-jae, and reports say the company wants to spread H-TPU across its portfolio, including next-generation enterprise SSD controllers. The design is already tied to Nvidia’s joint AIN P project, called Storage Next, and SK hynix also plans to use it in high-bandwidth flash that the outlet says is due next year.