[News] Samsung to Supply Enhanced HBM3E by Q1 End, Aims for HBM4 Mass Production in 2H 2025

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According to TechNews, citing Business Korea, South Korean memory giant Samsung has announced plans to supply major customers with its enhanced fifth-generation HBM3E products by the end of Q1 2025. Furthermore, the company aims to mass-produce sixth-generation HBM4 in the second half of 2025.

However, as indicated by the report, the company encounters challenges due to U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors, which are expected to result in temporary sales limitations on HBM products during the first quarter.

During its earnings call on January 31, Samsung disclosed that Q4 2024 HBM sales increased by 1.9 times compared to the previous quarter, albeit falling short of initial expectations, as the report notes. Samsung stated that after beginning mass production of 8-layer and 12-layer HBM3E products in Q3 2024, it expanded HBM3E supply to GPU vendors and data center customers in Q4, driving HBM3E sales to surpass those of HBM3, as highlighted in the report.

The report indicates that Samsung expects the supply of enhanced HBM3E products to increase significantly starting in Q2 2025. According to the report, Samsung states that aside from the impact of U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors, major clients are expected to shift demand from existing products to enhanced versions, leading to a temporary demand gap for HBM. However, after the second quarter, client demand is anticipated to transition from 8-layer to 12-layer stacks at a faster pace than previously expected. The company anticipates that its total HBM bit supply in 2025 will double compared to the previous year, as the report points out.

Meanwhile, the report states that Samsung has also produced samples for 16-layer stack technology verification and delivered them to major customers, though there is currently no expected commercial demand for HBM3E 16-layer stacked products.

As indicated by the report, to address the anticipated oversupply of DDR4 and LPDDR4, Samsung plans to significantly reduce the sales proportion of these two products from 30% at the beginning of 2024 to a single-digit percentage in 2025. Additionally, Samsung is accelerating the transition to V8 and V9 NAND Flash to ensure long-term product competitiveness while expanding sales of the proportion of high-capacity QLC sales for servers, as noted by the report.

Read more

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(Photo credit: Samsung)