Samsung and Micron plan to expand HBM production capacity

【Lansheng Technology News】Against the background of the downturn in the consumer storage market, high-bandwidth memory technology has become a new driving force. The latest report indicates that Samsung and Micron are actively preparing to expand HBM DRAM.

Samsung spent 10.5 billion won to acquire certain factories and equipment of Samsung Display in Cheonan, South Korea to expand HBM production capacity. Samsung also plans to invest another 700 billion to 1 trillion won in new packaging lines.

As previously reported, Mr. Hwang Sang-jun, Samsung Vice President and Head of DRAM Product and Technology Team, revealed that Samsung has developed HBM3E with a speed of 9.8Gbps and plans to start providing samples to customers. At the same time, Samsung is also developing various technologies for HBM4, including non-conductive film (NCF) assembly technology optimized for high-temperature thermal characteristics and hybrid bonding (HCB), with the goal of launching it by 2025.

Micron is also actively preparing for HBM production and opened a new factory in Taichung on November 6. Micron said the new facility will integrate advanced test and packaging capabilities and will be dedicated to mass production of HBM3E and other products designed to meet the growing demand for various applications such as artificial intelligence, data centers, edge computing and cloud services.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra revealed that it plans to begin mass shipments of HBM3E in early 2024 and is currently undergoing certification by NVIDIA. The initial HBM3E product will use an 8-Hi stack design with a capacity of 24GB and a bandwidth of over 1.2TB/s.

In addition, Micron also plans to launch the larger 36GB 12-Hi stack HBM3E in 2024. In an earlier statement, Micron expected the new HBM technology to contribute "hundreds of millions of dollars" in revenue by 2024.