(Photo= Yonhap news)

[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Sangjin] Samsung Electronics will begin mass production and supply of its 5th generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM), HBM3E, starting in Q3 this year. The company expects HBM3E to account for about 60% of total HBM sales by Q4. As only Nvidia is currently equipped to handle this volume, it is anticipated that Samsung will soon pass quality tests.

Jae-jun Kim, head of Samsung's Memory Business Unit, mentioned during the Q2 earnings call on July 31 that HBM3E's sales proportion will increase to the mid-10% range in Q3 and reach 60% in Q4. Although Samsung did not name its customers, market interpretations suggest that Nvidia, a major user of HBM3E, is close to finalizing orders.

Nvidia has been using SK Hynix's HBM3E for its AI accelerator 'Blackwell,' and is now sourcing additional HBM3E from Samsung and Micron to reduce costs.

For Q2, Samsung reported revenue of 74.07 trillion won and an operating profit of 10.44 trillion won, marking a year-on-year increase of 23.4% and 1462.2%, respectively. The semiconductor division contributed 28.56 trillion won in revenue and 6.45 trillion won in operating profit. TSMC, Taiwan's leading foundry, achieved revenue of 28.45 trillion won in Q2. This marks the first time in eight quarters that Samsung's semiconductor revenue has surpassed TSMC's.

 

 

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