Samsung's HBM4 Achieves "Golden Yield" 4 Months Early, HBM4E Development on Track

HBM4 Yield Soars to 80%, Four Months Ahead of Schedule

According to Korean media citing industry sources, although Samsung's initial HBM4 yield during mass production in February briefly fell below 60%, its yield has recently approached 80%. The industry had widely expected that Samsung would not achieve this yield level until the end of this year, but with a significant ramp-up in mass production scale in the second half of the year, the pace of process improvement has far exceeded expectations, hitting the target approximately four months ahead of schedule.

The key factor behind this rapid yield improvement is Samsung Electronics' "Integrated Response (Turnkey) System." From the chip design stage, Samsung has consolidated its internal memory, foundry, and advanced packaging divisions into an "integrated team" that simultaneously performs collaborative optimization across three core metrics, including speed, power consumption, and thermal performance. This integrated synergy has helped Samsung overcome the "Thermal Compression Non-Conductive Film (TC-NCF)" process bottleneck, which was previously seen as the biggest challenge to achieving high yields.

HBM Sales to Surge in Second Half, Year-End Market Share Target Set at 38%

In the semiconductor manufacturing area, 80% yield is often referred to as the "golden yield", which is a hallmark of mature mass production that not only maximizes profitability by minimizing defect rates but also ensures a stable supply of the volume required by customers.

With its yield firmly at a high level, Samsung's market strategy has shifted to a more aggressive stance. During its second-quarter earnings conference call, Samsung Electronics stated that HBM4 sales in the third quarter of this year would more than double quarter-over-quarter, and that HBM4 sales in the second half of the year would exceed 60% of total HBM sales. It has also been revealed that the company has set an internal target to raise its HBM market share to a level close to its overall DRAM market share (approximately 38%) by the end of the year.

HBM4E Yield Exceeds 70%, R&D Enters Stabilization Phase

In addition, Samsung Electronics previously disclosed in an internal business briefing that the yield for HBM4E reliability testing has exceeded 70%, and that the company has secured a leading position in the next-generation 10nm-class seventh-generation (D1d) DRAM process. Surpassing the 70% yield threshold during the pre-mass-production reliability testing stage indicates that the R&D process has substantially entered a stabilization phase.

It is said that Samsung Electronics delivered samples of its 12-layer HBM4E chips to major customers in late May. These chips are expected to be a key component of NVIDIA's next-generation AI accelerator "Rubin Ultra," which is slated for release next year.