Samsung Electronics chairman inspects HBM packaging line to reinforce chip technology leadership

Former LCD production line converted to semiconductor packaging facility

Samsung becomes first in industry to surpass $1 billion in HBM4 sales

HBM4E mass production shipment also achieved May 29

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong tours the cleanroom facilities of NRD-K, an advanced compound semiconductor research and development center, at the company's Giheung Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on Dec. 22 last year. [Samsung Electronics]
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong tours the cleanroom facilities of NRD-K, an advanced compound semiconductor research and development center, at the company's Giheung Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on Dec. 22 last year. [Samsung Electronics]

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong visited the company's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production line in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, on Tuesday — the same day Samsung announced it had become the first chipmaker to surpass $1 billion (about 1.5 trillion won) in sixth-generation HBM4 sales.

According to industry sources, Lee toured the C1 and C2 lines at the Cheonan facility, receiving briefings on operations, production plans and technology development progress. He then donned a cleanroom suit and walked the HBM packaging line to review production and quality competitiveness firsthand.

The Cheonan site was formerly a Samsung Display LCD production line. As the HBM era took hold and back-end processes grew in strategic importance, Samsung converted it into a packaging facility in the early 2020s. It has since become a key HBM production hub as the company scales up to meet growing demand in the AI chip market.

With global AI market growth driving a surge in HBM demand, Lee made the on-site visit to personally assess production competitiveness and supply response capabilities.

Samsung chose Tuesday — the day of Lee's visit — to announce that HBM4 sales had crossed the $1 billion mark. The milestone came roughly four months after the company became the first in the world to begin mass production shipments in February. Cumulative sales are expected to exceed $1.2 billion by the end of this month, with analysts projecting the figure could surpass $10 billion (about 15 trillion won) by year-end.

Samsung is currently supplying HBM4 on a priority basis for Nvidia's next-generation AI accelerator "Rubin" and AMD's AI accelerator "MI455X."

Analysts say Lee's visit was aimed at confirming these achievements and reinforcing the company's technology leadership going forward.

Samsung is pushing hard to expand its share of the HBM market on the strength of its HBM4 mass production milestone. On May 29, it became the first in the industry to ship samples of the seventh-generation HBM4E 12-layer product to Nvidia. HBM4E is slated for integration into Nvidia's next-next-generation AI accelerator platform "Rubin Ultra," set for release next year.

Samsung's strategy is to build on its technological edge in HBM4 and move to capture the market early with HBM4E as well. As an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) spanning logic, memory, foundry and packaging, the company offers one-stop capability covering everything from design to packaging.

As HBM grows more advanced, the logic component of the base die becomes increasingly significant. That dynamic is expected to make Samsung's ability to jointly optimize its in-house foundry processes and HBM design a powerful competitive advantage.

Meanwhile, attention is also turning to Lee's visit to the packaging facility ahead of a scheduled June 29 meeting with President Lee Jae-myung at Cheong Wa Dae to discuss semiconductor investment plans in the Honam region. A proposal to build a new packaging production line in Gwangju had been the leading option under consideration, though there are also indications that Samsung may announce a larger-scale investment plan extending to front-end processes as well.


jeongwan@heraldcorp.com