The Development and Expansion Plans of High Bandwidth Memory Chips by the Three Giants in 2025
TapTechNews July 10th news, the China Times reported today that under the strong promotion of the three giants SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron, the total monthly production capacity of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips in 2025 will be 540,000, compared to an increase of 276,000 in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 105%.
High Bandwidth Memory is a high-performance DRAM based on a 3D stacking process, suitable for application scenarios with high memory bandwidth requirements. It is combined with high-performance graphics processors, network switching and forwarding devices (such as routers, switches), and special application integrated circuits for AI in high-performance data centers, which can significantly reduce the power and area of semiconductors.
HBM is the part with the highest cost proportion in the AI accelerator card. Some media disassembled Nvidia's H100 chip. The material cost is about 3,000 US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 21,847 RMB), among which the HBM cost supplied by SK Hynix is as high as 2,000 US dollars (currently about 14,565 RMB), accounting for 66%.
Current situation of the three giants
SK Hynix and Micron are still the main suppliers of HBM at present. Both companies use the 1beta nanometer process and have shipped to Nvidia.
TrendForce Consulting believes that Samsung using the 1Alphanm process is expected to complete the certification in the second quarter and start supplying in the middle of this year.
Expansion plans of the three giants
Samsung is gradually upgrading its Pyeongtaek plant (P1L, P2L and P3L) in South Korea for DDR5 and HBM.
At the same time, the Hwaseong plant (lines 13/15/17) is being upgraded to the 1α process, leaving only a small part of the production capacity of the 1y/1z process to meet the needs of special industries such as aerospace.
SK Hynix produces HBM in M16 of Icheon, South Korea, and is starting to upgrade the M14 production line to 1α/1β process to supply DDR5 and HBM products.
In addition, the Wuxi plant is currently actively upgrading the process from 1y/1z to 1z/1α for the production of DDR4 and DDR5 products respectively.
Micron's HBM front-end is produced in the Hiroshima plant in Japan, and the production capacity is expected to increase to 25,000 by the fourth quarter of this year; in the long term, it will introduce the EUV process (1γ, 1δ) and build a new cleanroom.
