South Korea’s two major memory chip manufacturers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, are set to release their Q3 earnings reports (July to September) at the end of the month, with Samsung Electronics also announcing its financial forecast on October 8.

According to The Korea Times, the market expects SK Hynix to see a significant surge in operating profit driven by strong demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), potentially outperforming Samsung’s semiconductor division.

The Korea Times reports that SK Hynix’s Q3 operating profit is forecast to hit 6.76 trillion won (around $5 billion), with total revenue projected at 17.99 trillion won. If these estimates hold, SK Hynix may set a new record for quarterly operating profit, despite the broader challenges facing the global memory chip market.

On the other hand, Samsung Electronics does not break down individual business units in its earnings forecasts. However, the company’s Device Solutions (DS) division, which handles the memory chip business, is expected to contribute more than half of Samsung’s overall operating profit.

The market anticipates that Samsung Electronics will report an overall Q3 operating profit of 10.77 trillion won, with its DS division’s profit ranging between 5.2 trillion and 6.3 trillion won.

The Korea Times points out that SK Hynix could potentially surpass Samsung in operating profit by 400 billion to 1.5 trillion won, dealing a blow to Samsung’s long-standing dominance as the world’s top memory chipmaker.

There is growing speculation that SK Hynix may overtake Samsung in annual operating profit.

According to Business Korea, SK Hynix has begun mass production of the world’s first 12-layer HBM3E, following its earlier shipment of 8-layer HBM3E to Nvidia, the leading semiconductor company. The company plans to start supplying the 12-layer HBM3E within this year, further strengthening its market position.

TrendForce forecasts that by next year, HBM will account for 10% of total DRAM bit production and contribute more than 30% of DRAM market revenue. Moreover, HBM3E is expected to make up over 80% of the total HBM demand.

(Photo credit: SK Hynix)

According to TrendForce’s latest memory spot price trend report, regarding DRAM, with China’s upcoming National Day holiday and the lack of restocking momentum, the spot market is expected to become quieter in the next two weeks, causing the spot prices continue to slide. As for NAND flash, another wave of inventory reduction has surfaced among module houses. Combined with the relatively high inventory of YMTC, the spot market is surrounded by pressure of sales. Details are as follows:

DRAM Spot Price:

The previously mentioned influx of reball DDR4 and DDR5 chips (from decommissioned modules) is still unabated, and most major module houses are compelled to cut prices due to inventory pressure. With China’s upcoming National Day holiday and the lack of restocking momentum in the earlier period, the spot market is expected to become quieter in the next two weeks. Therefore, spot prices will continue to slide as well. The average spot price of mainstream chips (i.e., DDR4 1Gx8 2666MT/s) has fallen by 1.28% from US$ 1.959 last week to US$1.934 this week.

NAND Flash Spot Price:

Another wave of inventory reduction has surfaced among module houses amidst the supposedly peak season, followed by an ongoing decrement of prices, where most sellers equipped with ample stocks are looking to maintain their operations by exchanging their inventory with cash. All the while, YMTC has managed to drop in inventory by rushing to ship out its products to some major module houses at lower prices also due to the pressure aroused by excessive inventory. The spot market is thus lingering amidst pressure of sales. Spot prices of 512Gb TLC wafers have dropped by 3.69% this week, arriving at US$2.610.

Is the winter really coming for the memory sector? Despite an earlier report by Morgan Stanley warning of an AI bubble, U.S. memory giant Micron reveals a financial guidance that beats market expectations, projecting its fiscal first-quarter revenue to reach USD 8.7 billion, higher than an average analyst estimate of USD 8.32 billion, Bloomberg notes.

Meanwhile, Micron expects a significant increase in gross margin to around 39.5%, and an adjusted earnings of USD 1.74 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of USD 1.65, according to Reuters.

The growth momentum will mainly rely on the soaring demand for HBM, driven by AI. Earlier in June, Micron noted that its HBM chips have been fully booked for 2024 and 2025.

In terms of the outlook for the overall HBM market, Micron’s view evidently contradicts with that of Morgan Stanley, as it eyes the HBM total available market (TAM) to grow from approximately USD 4 billion in 2023 to over USD 25 billion in 2025.

And the company is making strides in its progress in HBM in the following year. According to its press release, Micron expects its HBM, high-capacity D5 and LP5 solutions, and data center SSD products to deliver multiple billions of dollars in revenue in fiscal 2025.

The U.S. memory giant also expects its HBM market share to commensurate with the company’s overall DRAM market share sometime in 2025.

According to TrendForce, Micron ranked third in DRAM revenue in Q2, 2024, with a market share of 19.6%, after Samsung’s 42.9% and SK hynix’s 34.5%, respectively.

Regarding the latest development on HBM, after its 8-hi HBM3E entered mass production in February, Micron confirms that it has started shipments of production-capable HBM3E 12-hi 36GB units to key industry partners to enable qualifications across the AI ecosystem, stating that its HBM3E 12-hi 36GB delivers 20% lower power consumption than its competitors’ HBM3E 8-hi 24GB solutions while providing 50% higher DRAM capacity.

The company expects to ramp its 12-hi HBM3E in early 2025 and increase the 12-hi mix in the overall shipments throughout the year.

According to a previous report by Tom’s Hardware, the new products are reportedly designed for cutting-edge processors used in AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, including NVIDIA’s H200 and B100/B200 GPUs.

Micron delivered a strong finish to fiscal year 2024, with fiscal Q4 revenue at the high end of its guidance range and gross margins and earnings per share (EPS) above the high end of its guidance ranges.

In fiscal Q4, Micron’s revenue jumped 93% YoY to USD 7.75 billion. Its earnings per share (EPS) came in at USD 1.18, a notable turnaround from the loss of USD 1.07 per share in the same period of 2023. In addition, it achieved record-high revenues in NAND and in its storage business unit.

Micron’s fiscal 2024 revenue grew over 60%, with company gross margins expanding by over 30 percentage points and achieved revenue records in data center and in automotive, according to its press release.

Read more

• [News] Micron’s 12-Hi HBM3e Ready for Production, Targeting NVIDIA’s H200 and B100/ B200 GPUs
• [News] Morgan Stanley Predicts ‘DRAM Winter,’ But TrendForce Remains Less Pessimistic

(Photo credit: Micron)

SK Hynix announced today that it has commenced mass production of the world’s first 12-layer HBM3E product with 36GB of capacity, the largest for any HBM currently available, according to the company.

SK Hynix stated that it plans to deliver these mass-produced units to customers by year-end, marking another technological milestone just six months after shipping its 8-layer HBM3E product in March.

The company also emphasized that it remains the only firm globally to have developed and supplied the entire HBM lineup, from HBM1 to HBM3E, since debuting the world’s first HBM in 2013.

The 12-layer HBM3E meets the highest global standards in speed, capacity, and stability—all critical for AI memory, SK Hynix said. The memory’s operational speed has been increased to 9.6 Gbps. When paired with a single GPU running four HBM3E units, AI models like ‘Llama 3 70B’ can process 70 billion parameters 35 times per second.

SK Hynix has boosted capacity by 50% by stacking 12 layers of 3GB DRAM chips at the same thickness as the previous 8-layer product. To achieve this, each chip was made 40% thinner and stacked using TSV technology.

By employing its advanced MR-MUF process, SK Hynix claims to have resolved structural challenges posed by stacking thinner chips. This allows for 10% better heat dissipation and enhanced stability and reliability through improved warpage control.

“SK hynix has once again broken through technological limits demonstrating our industry leadership in AI memory,” said Justin Kim, President (Head of AI Infra) at SK hynix. “We will continue our position as the No.1 global AI memory provider as we steadily prepare next-generation memory products to overcome the challenges of the AI era.”

(Photo credit: SK Hynix)

While South Korean memory giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix saw their sales in China double in the first half of this year, the country as a whole seems to heavily rely on China for essential semiconductor raw materials as well, with silicon, germanium, gallium and indium seeing the largest increase, according to a report by the Korea Eximbank Overseas Economic Research Institute on September 24 cited by Business Korea.

Despite the efforts to diversify supply chains, the report highlights the growing reliance of South Korea on China for critical semiconductor raw materials. For instance, the importance of silicon, a vital component in silicon wafer production, has been increasing, as the country’s reliance on China for the ingredient rose from 68.8% to 75.4% in 2022, the report states.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s reliance on rare earths, which are used in semiconductor abrasives, is also said to be on the rise, the report notes. The reliance on tungsten, crucial for semiconductor metal wiring, experienced a slight increase as well.

It is worth noting that since August of last year, the Chinese government has imposed export restrictions on critical minerals, including germanium and gallium, as a counteract to U.S. export sanctions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China produces 98% of the world’s gallium and 60% of germanium.

Even before the sanction, there is a significant rise in South Korea’s dependence on China for these critical minerals. Business Korea notes that the country’s dependence on germanium, which is frequently used in next-gen compound semiconductors, surged by 17.4 percentage points to 74.3% in 2022.

In addition, reliance on gallium and indium increased by 20.5 percentage points to 46.7%, according to the report.

Under the scenario of China’s export restrictions on key minerals, which were implemented in August and December of last year, the local production by major Chinese companies has not significantly declined, the report notes.

For instance, Samsung’ NAND flash facility in Xi’an, China, has increased its share for the company’s total NAND capacity during the past few years, from 29% in 2021 to 37% in 2023, with expectations to reach 40% this year, according to the report.

Read more

• [News] China’s Gallium and Germanium Export Restrictions Risk Chip Production Shortages
• [News] Chip War Escalates: China to Enforce State Ownership of All Rare Earth Materials in October

(Photo credit: Samsung)