Korean media reported that Samsung Electronics' sixth-generation high-frequency wide memory "HBM4" sample has been approved by NVIDIA (Nvidia Corp.) and is expected to enter the final pre-production (PP) stage by the end of August. If...
Korean media reported that Samsung Electronics' sixth-generation high-frequency wide memory "HBM4" sample has been approved by NVIDIA (Nvidia Corp.) and is expected to enter the final pre-production (PP) stage by the end of August. If the test is successful, mass production will be started as early as the end of this year.
BusinessKorea and Wccftech quoted Seoul Economic Daily's report on the 21st. A business person revealed that they have learned about the various quality items (including yields, etc.) of Samsung HBM4, which have received positive reviews and have entered the pre-production stage. "If the pre-production test is also passed, it is estimated that it can be produced in November or December."
Pre-production is the final verification procedure before semiconductor production. The HBM4 prototype provided by Samsung in July is an "engineering sample", and the pre-production program will test the compatibility of the sample with the customer's picture processor (GPU) to see if the quality can reach high standards in a specific temperature environment. Once this stage passes, the production period can be transferred.
HBM4 will be applied to NVIDIA's next-generation AI accelerator "Rubin". SK hynix, currently the exclusive HBM supplier of NVIDIA, sent the HBM4 sample to NVIDIA as early as March and initially produced in early June, and is scheduled to start mass production in October. If Samsung passes the pre-production stage, it will produce energy in November and quickly narrow the distance with SK Hynix.
News has also been released in the market that Samsung's 12-layer stacked HBM3E will be tested by NVIDIA quality before the end of August. The industry believes that NVIDIA and SK Hynix are in a pullback when discussing HBM production and price reporting recently, suggesting that Samsung may be about to deliver.
If Samsung successfully enters NVIDIA's HBM3E and HBM4 supply chains, the AI memory version picture in the next (2026) will inevitably undergo major changes. In the first half of this year, Samsung's HBM market share dropped to 17% from 41% in the same period last year, while SK Hynix increased from 55% to 62%, and Micron also rose from 4% to 21%. The financial industry believes that Samsung's HBM sales growth rate is expected to more than double next year.
