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The high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market for servers is transitioning from HBM3 to HBM3e, which means 2025 will likely be the year we see next-generation HBM4 arrive. Samsung might beat its rivals to the punch in this high-stakes battle, as a new report says it’s ready to begin the final phase of HBM4 development before moving to initial production in early 2025.
The HBM market is as red-hot as the AI market, as all of the industry’s AI accelerators use this type of memory. That means there’s a three-way war going on right now between Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix to develop HBM4 and get it to market first. According to The Elec’s Korean version, Samsung is close to the finish line and will enter the tape-out phase for HBM4 later this year before moving to volume production in late 2025.
Samsung isn’t talking much about HBM4’s capabilities yet, but it’s expected to offer a massive increase in bandwidth and overall capacity.
Credit: Samsung
The site reports Samsung will need about four months from the time of the tape-out to produce a final test product. After that product is tested and validated as meeting its specifications, the company will provide samples to its partners and then move to high-volume production later in the year. This means we likely won’t see HBM4 arrive in actual products until 2026 at the earliest. Samsung will reportedly create the logic dies for HBM4 on its 4nm process and use its 10nm node for the DRAM chips.
HBM4 will feature a radical redesign of how these memory “modules” are created with the logic die the memory is stacked on fabricated through a logic process instead of a DRAM process. The memory bus is also expected to double in width from 1,024-bit to 2,048 bits, allowing for more bandwidth without increasing clock speeds. Samsung is expected to enter the market with a flagship 12-stack offering while touting a future version with as many as 16 stacks.
SK Hynix is also expected to debut its own version of HBM4 on the same timeline as Samsung, as the two companies are embroiled in a cross-town feud over HBM memory development, with SK Hynix currently having the upper hand. As Tom’s Hardware notes, it will use TSMC’s 12nm and 5nm class for the base dies for both high-performance and cost-effective implementations of HBM4.