Samsung's Lee Inspects HBM Line as HBM4 Eyes $10 Billion in Sales This Year - Seoul Economic Daily

Samsung's CEO Lee Kun-hee recently inspected the company's HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) production line, highlighting the company's strategic focus on this critical storage technology. HBM4 technology,... Read original →

Samsung’s CEO inspecting the HBM line signals a strategic pivot, not ceremonial optics. Technically, HBM4 will accelerate adoption of TSV and hybrid bonding, forcing equipment vendors like ASML to enhance packaging metrology and driving demand for advanced interposers. On compliance, tighter U.S.-ROK export controls may inflate Samsung’s overseas fab costs and complicate deliveries to mainland China amid heightened scrutiny. Trailing SK hynix—which already ships HBM3E tied to NVIDIA—Samsung must leapfrog in yield and bandwidth with HBM4 or risk ceding AI server memory share. Within 18 months, if HBM4 hits the $10B sales mark, it will restructure DRAM economics: commodity memory margins will erode further, while stacked high-bandwidth solutions dictate wafer allocation priorities across leading foundries.