SK hynix’s 2025 HBM supply sold out

SK Hynix said it has sold most of its quota for high-bandwidth memory chips in 2025, as the artificial intelligence boom continues.

On May 2, at the R&D center in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, SK Hynix CEO Kwak No-jeong hosted the "AI Semiconductor Vision and Strategy" press conference, announcing that most of the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) expected to be produced next year The product is sold out. He also announced that HBM3E 12-Hi product samples will be released next month and mass production will begin in the third quarter.

CEO Kwak noted that while AI is currently centered in data centers, it is quickly spreading to smartphones, PCs, cars and other devices. He predicts a surge in demand for ultra-fast, high-capacity, low-power memory specifically designed for artificial intelligence applications.

Kim Ju-seon, the company’s president of artificial intelligence infrastructure, said: “With the advent of the artificial intelligence era, global data production was 15 ZB [1 ZB = 1 billion TB] in 2014 and is expected to reach 660 ZB by 2014. 2030." He noted that HBM and high-capacity DRAM modules accounted for approximately 5% of the entire memory market in 2023 and are expected to account for 61% by 2028. SK Hynix already has an AI memory product portfolio that includes eSSD for AI servers and LPDDR5 for on-device artificial intelligence.

SK Hynix recently announced an investment of 20 trillion won in the M15x wafer fab in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, and plans to start HBM production there in the third quarter of 2026. The first wafer fab is under construction in the Yongin cluster, covering an area of ​​approximately 4,150,000 square meters. Construction will begin in March 2025 and is expected to be completed in May 2027.

Amid concerns over "HBM oversupply" due to aggressive investments by rivals such as Samsung Electronics and US-based Micron Technology, CEO Kwak insisted that unlike conventional memory, the increase in HBM supply was made in consultation with customers.

Experts predict HBM supply shortages will continue into next year. Professor Beom Jin-wook of the Department of Electronic Engineering at Sogang University commented, "Artificial intelligence is evolving with the development of new products such as large language models (LLM) and co-pilot, and is also being applied to smartphones." He noted, The need for HBM primarily for training will expand as the model continues to be developed.

The industry expects that, together with Samsung Electronics, which announced plans to mass-produce HBM3E 12-Hi products in the second quarter, SK Hynix will also lead the upcoming 5th and next-generation HBM era.

Encouraged by HBM's recent growth trend, CEO Kwak expressed pride in the company's packaging technology, saying: "SK hynix's proprietary advanced packaging method Advanced MR-MUF is also optimized for HBM's high-rise stacking," plans The application promotes this technology to the 6th generation HBM (HBM4) and realizes 16-Hi products. Hybrid bonding technology is also being actively explored.

SK Hynix plans to start mass production of HBM4 at its advanced packaging manufacturing base in Indiana, USA, in the second half of 2028. Vice President Choi Woo-jin mentioned that it is discussing whether the factory will use a process similar to TSMC CoWoS, involving Nvidia, The advanced chip packaging technology used by companies such as Apple is 2.5D technology.

SK Hynix today announced a strategic alliance with Nvidia and TSMC to develop and supply top-tier products as one team with global system semiconductor and foundry partners. Last month, the company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with TSMC to jointly develop next-generation packaging technology. President Kim Ju-seon described the cooperation as a deeper technical exchange than before, under the "shift left" concept, which means starting from the basic stage rather than assembling the HBM obtained from TSMC to jointly produce customized products for AI customers. HBM.

SK Hynix acquired Soliddime from Intel in 2020, including its NAND business in Dalian, China. Despite a net loss of more than 4 trillion won last year due to deteriorating semiconductor conditions and Sino-U.S. technology conflicts, Vice President Ahn Hyun predicted that Soliddime's holdings will see a recovery trend due to increasing demand for large-capacity SSDs in artificial intelligence servers. . Occupy an important market share. CEO Kwak also emphasized that the synergies between SK Hynix and Soliddime will allow them to effectively target the Chinese market. The news comes after SK Chairman Choi Tae-won met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng last month and expressed his willingness to increase investment in China.

In response to a question about the background of becoming an AI memory leader, CEO Kwak said: "In 2012, when the memory market was down and semiconductor companies reduced investment, SK Group, including its investment in HBM, actually increased investment," he It also praised "the partnerships it has established with clients through Chairman Choi Tae-won's global network."

SK Hynix, which ranked second in the field of storage semiconductors in the previous ten years, seized the opportunities brought by the artificial intelligence boom in the second half of 2022 and secured its No. 1 spot in the field of artificial intelligence storage. Despite the challenges faced during the 2023 semiconductor recession, the company managed to mitigate losses by leveraging its HBM technology. By the fourth quarter of 2023, the company will be profitable. In the first quarter of this year, the leading chipmaker's operating profit surpassed that of Samsung Electronics, reaching 2.88 trillion won (approximately $2.106 billion), compared with Samsung Electronics' 1.91 trillion won (approximately $1.4 billion). This remarkable performance highlights the importance of SK hynix's strategy of entering the market first through next-generation semiconductors such as HBM. This strategy is consistent with the ongoing restructuring of the global semiconductor market around artificial intelligence technology.

In the first quarter of 2022, SK Hynix’s revenue was 12.16 trillion won (approximately US$8.9 billion) and operating profit was 2.86 trillion won (approximately US$2.09 billion). Those figures accounted for about half of Samsung Electronics' revenue and one-third of its operating profit during the same period. SK Hynix attributes its current dominance of the AI ​​memory market to strategic foresight rather than chance. "HBM technology didn't just fall from the sky," Kwak said at a press conference in May. 2. "In 2012, when other companies cut investment by 10% due to the memory recession, we increased investment, including HBM, which had an uncertain future."

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