Samsung HBM4E samples now shipping to major customers
Samsung has started shipping 12-layer HBM4E samples to major global customers. The company says this is the industry’s first HBM4E sample shipment, following its earlier HBM4 mass production and commercial shipment from February.
As covered in our previous HBM4 report, Samsung’s HBM4 was already listed with up to 11.7Gbps speed in system-in-package tests. The new HBM4E raises the pin speed to 14Gbps, with scaling up to 16Gbps depending on customer requirements.
Samsung says this gives HBM4E more than 20% higher speed than its HBM4 generation. The company lists bandwidth at up to 3.6 TB/s per stack, which targets AI accelerators, large language model training and hyperscale data center platforms.
“Following the successful mass production of HBM4, Samsung has once again demonstrated its distinct technological edge with HBM4E. Through our advanced manufacturing capabilities and preemptive infrastructure investments, we will continue to drive the growth of the global AI memory market.”
— Sang Joon Hwang, Executive Vice President and Head of Memory Development at Samsung Electronics.
The first HBM4E sample is a 12-layer 48GB stack. Samsung also plans 8-layer 32GB and 16-layer 64GB versions, depending on customer demand. The company has not named the first customers for the new memory.
HBM4E uses Samsung’s 1c DRAM process, which the company calls its 6th-generation 10nm-class technology. It also uses a 4nm logic base die from Samsung Foundry, similar to HBM4.
Samsung says low-power design changes and packaging updates improve energy efficiency by 16% and thermal resistance by more than 14% compared with the previous generation. The company says this should help with heat dissipation under long AI workloads.
Mass production is not starting yet. Samsung says HBM4E production will begin according to customer schedules, after sample shipments and optimization work are complete.
Source: Samsung
