The latest news shows that storage semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are actively promoting the expansion of HBM (high-bandwidth memory) production lines. According to industry sources, the two companies plan to invest more than 2 trillion won in total by the end of next year to more than double the current production capacity of HBM.
SK hynix plans to use the idle space of its Cheongju factory behind its HBM production base in Icheon to expand its HBM production line. Samsung Electronics, meanwhile, is considering expanding HBM's core production line in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, where the advanced packaging team under its Device Solutions division is located.
According to market research firm TrendForce, demand for HBM measured in gigabytes (GB) is expected to grow by a massive 60%, from 181 million GB in 2022 to 290 million GB in 2023. Demand is expected to increase by another 30% by 2024.
HBM3 is the latest generation product, its total capacity is 12 times that of the latest DRAM product GDDR6, and its bandwidth is about 13 times. This shows that HBM has great potential in the memory semiconductor market.
According to reports, it usually takes more than a year between customers and HBM manufacturers to discuss product development and produce customized products. For example, Nvidia's recently acquired HBM2E and HBM3 products from SK Hynix were co-developed 1-2 years ago.
HBM is gradually emerging in the memory semiconductor market. Although Samsung and SK Hynix have not disclosed the specific HBM price, it is reported that the price of the latest generation product HBM3 is about 5-6 times that of the latest traditional DRAM products. This also explains why HBM's shipments accounted for only 1.7% of total DRAM shipments this year, but its sales accounted for 11%.
Recent data shows that the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence ChatGPT since last December has increased the demand for high-performance DRAM, known as high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Compared with traditional DRAM, HBM has larger data capacity and faster speed, which can improve performance by more than ten times.