Samsung expected the high demand for memory chips to continue not only this year, but until 2027. Song Jae-hyuk, technical director of the Device Solutions sector responsible for manufacturing chips, revealed during his participation in the Semicon Korea conference, a number of important details about the company’s future directions.
Artificial intelligence giants, which are building massive cloud infrastructures to meet the growing demand for computing power, have pushed up unprecedented orders for memory chips, which in turn has sent prices significantly higher.
In this context, Samsung focused on the mass production of high-bandwidth HBM4 memory, after recording strong sales in the third quarter of last year driven by great demand for HBM3E, and the momentum continued during the fourth quarter.
During the first quarter of this year, the company plans to expand sales of the latest HBM4, noting that customers who received initial shipments described the chip’s performance as “very satisfactory.”
In a future step, Samsung has developed Hybrid Bonding technology for HBM memory, which reduces the thermal resistance in the 12H and 16H stack by 20%. Tests showed a reduction in core mold temperature of 11%, but the date when this technology will be commercially available has not yet been determined.
The company also unveiled zHBM technology, which relies on stacking chips on the Z axis, increasing memory bandwidth four times, while reducing power consumption by 25%.
Furthermore, Samsung is developing custom HBM designs that include processing capabilities embedded within the memory itself, known as Processing-In-Memory, or PIM, technology. According to the CTO, this approach can boost performance by 2.8 times while maintaining energy efficiency.
