TapTechNews May 20th news, according to TrendForce research, the three major original factories (TapTechNews note: referring to Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics) have started to increase the wafer input of advanced processes, and the capacity improvement will be concentrated in the second half of this year. It is expected that the wafer input of 1 alphanm (inclusive) or above by the end of the year will account for about 40% of the total DRAM wafer input. In terms of the TSV capacity of each company, by the end of the year, HBM will account for 35% of the advanced process proportion, and the rest will be used to produce LPDDR5(X) and DDR5 products.
In terms of the latest development progress of HBM, this year HBM3e will be the mainstream in the market, and it will be mainly shipped in the second half of this year. Currently, SK Hynix is still the main supplier, and both it and Micron adopt the 1 betanm process, and the two have now officially shipped to NVIDIA; while Samsung adopts the 1 alphanm process and is expected to complete the verification in the second quarter of this year and start delivery in the middle of the year.
The current new plant planning of the three major original factories is as follows:
Samsung's existing plant will have approximately full capacity by the end of 2024, and the new plant P4L is planned to be completed in 2025, and at the same time, the process conversion will be carried out in the Line 15 plant area, from 1Ynm to 1 betanm or above.
SK Hynix is expected to expand the M16 capacity next year, and the M15X is also planned to be completed in 2025 and mass-produced by the end of next year.
Micron's Taiwan, China plant will return to full capacity next year, and the subsequent capacity expansion will mainly be in the US plants. The Boise plant is expected to be completed in 2025 and machines will be moved in successively, and it is planned to be mass-produced in 2026.
Although the new plants of the three major original factories will be completed in 2025, the subsequent mass-production time of some plants has not been clearly planned yet, and it depends on the profit in 2024 to continue to expand the scale.
In addition, since NVIDIA's GB200 will be shipped in large quantities in 2025, and its specification is HBM3e 192/384GB, it is expected that the output of HBM will nearly double. Then the three major original factories will start to develop HBM4. If the investment does not increase significantly, because the capacity planning of each company gives priority to HBM, under the effect of capacity crowding, DRAM products may be in short supply.