It will apply the 12-nanometer foundry technology for general-use HBM4 and HBM4E
kedglobal.com, Dec. 03, 2024 –
SK Hynix Inc. will adopt the 3-nanometer process, the most advanced foundry technology available, to produce customized HBM4 chips in the second half of 2025, according to semiconductor industry sources on Tuesday.
The South Korean chipmaker had originally planned to manufacture the sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) tailor-made for customers on the 5 nm node. It is teaming up with foundry leader TSMC Co. to develop HBM4.
But it recently shifted to the 3 nm process for HBM4, which it is expected to ship to Nvidia Corp. in the second half of 2025, at the request of its key customers for more advanced memory.
SK Hynix is said to unveil a HBM4 prototype that is vertically stacked on a 3 nm base die as early as March, the sources told The Korea Economic Daily.
Nvidia's graphic processing unit (GPU) products are currently based on 4 nm HBM chips.
A base die is placed at the bottom of an HBM connected to a GPU and acts as its brain. An HBM stacked on a 3 nm base die is expected to enhance performance by 20-30% compared to the HBM4 with a 5 nm base die.
Its shift to a 3 nm foundry process comes as it goes all-in on US Big Tech such as Nvidia Corp., Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. to lessen its reliance on China amid Washington's clampdown on exports to China.