Samsung to deepen leadership in customized memory chips

Bae Yong-cheol, Samsung Electronics’ Executive Vice President of the Memory Product Planning Team

Samsung Electronics revealed plans to enhance its lineup of memory semiconductors used in various areas including cloud, on-device artificial intelligence, and vehicles by introducing tailored high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and other future solutions.

Bae Yong-cheol, Samsung Electronics’ Executive Vice President of the Memory Product Planning Team, penned an article in the company’s newsroom on Monday outlining these developments.

“Tailored HBM DRAM will play a pivotal role in overcoming technological challenges of future memory chips,” Bae emphasized in the article.

To achieve this, Samsung Electronics plans to use advanced logic processes on the buffer die starting from the next-generation HBM4.

The buffer die refers to the bottom-most layer that controls the stacked memory in HBM. By reducing the bandwidth at this level, additional functionalities can be integrated into HBM. Samsung’s strategy revolves around creating customized products for clients rather than those for general purposes.

Implementing these advanced processes in memory companies requires expertise from foundries specializing in contract manufacturing. As a memory company that boasts foundry capabilities, Samsung is recognized for its optimization in manufacturing tailored HBM.

Bae highlighted not only tailored HBM but also the emerging Compute Express Link (CXL) as a next-generation DRAM technology. CMM-D is a product enabling the expansion of memory chips’ bandwidth and capacity. “We are at the forefront of developing products with the highest industry capacities while leading in CXL.”

He also confidently pointed out Processor-in-Memory (PIM), or integrating computing capabilities into the memory, as an area to watch.

“We are accelerating our preparations for the future by recently establishing a dedicated Memory Product Planning division, responding agilely to rapidly changing technological and market environments.”