Samsung Electronics (005930) is expected to more than double output of its HBM4 family of high-bandwidth memory chips next year, including sixth-generation HBM4 and seventh-generation HBM4E, as the company plans to raise demand for glass carriers by 2.5 times from this year. Glass carriers are glass supports that hold wafers in place while HBM DRAM is thinned.
Samsung will increase outsourced cleaning volume for glass carriers, an essential material in HBM production, to 50,000 sheets a month next year from 20,000 sheets a month this year, according to semiconductor industry sources on the 20th. Glass carrier requirements stood at 10,000 sheets a month as recently as last year, doubling this year and set to rise 2.5-fold next year.
A glass carrier is a support temporarily attached to the underside of an HBM DRAM wafer to prevent bending or cracking while the wafer is ground thin and drilled. Because HBM requires stacking multiple DRAM dies within a limited thickness, the technology for thinning wafers and the processes for controlling warpage become more important as stack counts rise.
The HBM4 and HBM4E products Samsung is preparing to scale up center on 12-layer and higher stacks. Industry analysts say that even accounting for the fact that glass carriers are reused after cleaning and that consumption varies by process loading method and yield, a 2.5-fold increase in related volume makes it highly likely that HBM4 and HBM4E output will grow at least twofold from this year.
In February, Samsung began mass-production shipments of HBM4 using 10-nanometer-class sixth-generation (1c) DRAM and a base die built on a 4-nanometer process. In May, it also provided 12-layer HBM4E samples to customers including Nvidia.
The industry expects Samsung's HBM production scale to grow nearly 40% to about 250,000 wafers next year from roughly 180,000 wafers this year, measured by average monthly wafer input. By product shipment mix, the HBM4 family is projected to rise from around 40% this year to about 80% next year as HBM4E mass production ramps up. "As Samsung expands HBM production, it appears to be placing HBM4, a high-value product, at the center," an industry official said.
