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Samsung reportedly to more than double HBM4 and HBM4E output next year
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Samsung Electronics is expected to more than double its production of sixth-generation HBM4 and seventh-generation HBM4E chips next year, driven by a 2.5-fold increase in outsourced glass carrier cleaning volume.
The shift to 12-layer and higher stacks makes wafer thinning and warpage control critical, requiring glass carriers to support the dies during grinding. A 2.5-fold rise in carrier cleaning volume from 20,000 to 50,000 sheets monthly serves as a direct proxy for the scaling of these high-value memory products. This expansion signals a strategic pivot toward HBM4 as the core of Samsung's memory portfolio, with its share of total HBM shipments projected to jump from 40% to 80%.
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Samsung plans to increase outsourced glass carrier cleaning volume to 50,000 sheets per month next year, up from 20,000 this year.
The HBM4 family, centered on 12-layer and higher stacks, is projected to account for about 80% of Samsung's HBM shipments next year.
Total HBM production scale is expected to grow nearly 40% to approximately 250,000 wafers per month next year.
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Samsung is preparing to significantly scale its high-bandwidth memory output, with industry sources indicating a more than twofold increase in HBM4 and HBM4E production next year. This expansion is closely tied to the company's plan to raise demand for glass carriers, which are essential for holding wafers steady during the thinning process. The specific metric driving this projection is the increase in outsourced cleaning volume for these carriers, which is set to rise from 20,000 sheets a month to 50,000 sheets a month.
The technical necessity for glass carriers stems from the physical constraints of HBM manufacturing, where multiple DRAM dies are stacked within a limited thickness. As stack counts rise to 12 layers and higher, the risk of wafer bending or cracking during grinding and drilling increases, making warpage control a critical process step. While glass carriers are reused after cleaning, the 2.5-fold increase in cleaning volume suggests a substantial ramp-up in the number of wafers undergoing this delicate thinning procedure.
The production mix is shifting heavily toward the newer HBM4 family, which is projected to constitute about 80% of Samsung's HBM shipments next year, compared to around 40% this year. This transition coincides with the company's recent mass-production shipments of HBM4 using 10-nanometer-class DRAM and a 4-nanometer base die, as well as the provision of 12-layer HBM4E samples to customers like Nvidia. The overall HBM production scale is expected to grow nearly 40%, reaching approximately 250,000 wafers per month on average.
The reliance on outsourced cleaning for glass carriers highlights a specific supply chain dependency for this scaling effort. Although the carriers themselves are reusable, the volume of cleaning required is a direct indicator of the throughput of the thinning process, which is the bottleneck for high-stack HBM production. The industry's confidence in the twofold output growth is based on the assumption that the 2.5-fold increase in carrier cleaning volume, adjusted for reuse and yield variations, accurately reflects the underlying production ramp.
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