Samsung Plans to Ramp Up HBM4 Mass Production

A few weeks ago, Samsung confirmed the mass production of its HBM4, along with the start of shipments to key customers. The company now appears to be seeing massive demand for the 6th-gen high-bandwidth memory chips and has decided to ramp up production. To fulfill this need, the firm has reportedly accelerated equipment investment at the Pyeongtaek Plant 4 (P4) in Gyeonggi Province.

Samsung orders semiconductor equipment for P4 expansion

According to a report from ZDNet Korea, Samsung has placed bulk orders for semiconductor manufacturing equipment for the two remaining phases of its P4 facility. This includes front-end process tools for ph2 and ph4, which are necessary for making cutting-edge memory chips.

Samsung’s P4 facility is split into four phases, with construction orders: ph1, ph3, ph4, and ph2. The company has already completed its investment for ph1. It kicked off investment for ph3 in the second half of last year, with most equipment installation now finished.

Now, Samsung is moving on to the remaining phases. The Korean firm could begin installing the front-end process in ph4 in May or June this year. Meanwhile, ph2 could receive its equipment around November. To prepare for this, it began cleanroom construction in the first quarter of this year. The cleanroom ensures a dust-free environment for advanced chip manufacturing.

Samsung designed the Pyeongtaek Campus (P4) to make DRAM, NAND, and foundry chips. However, due to increasing demand for memory used in AI systems, it has shifted most of its production capacity to cutting-edge DRAM manufacturing. For the uninitiated, DRAM plays a key role in the HBM product (which stacks multiple advanced DRAM chips vertically). The company is using 1c DRAM (a 6th-gen 10nm-class memory process) for the HBM4.

Beyond Nvidia, Samsung is also expanding its HBM4 customer base. The company could supply chips to OpenAI for the first-generation Titan AI chip. Likewise, the chip will also power AMD’s next-generation Instinct MI455X GPU.