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Samsung Electronics began shipping samples of its HBM4E high-bandwidth memory chip to major global customers on Thursday, becoming the first company to distribute the next-generation AI memory product.
The 12-layer chip delivers a stable pin speed of 14 gigabits-per-second, with performance scalable to 16 Gbps, representing a more than 20% increase over Samsung's HBM4, the company said. Memory bandwidth reaches up to 3.6 terabytes-per-second per stack. Capacity comes in at 48 gigabytes, which Samsung said marks a greater than 30% jump from the previous generation; an 8-layer 32GB variant and a 16-layer 64GB variant are also in the works, contingent on what customers require. Samsung said it will begin mass production aligned with customer schedules following sample evaluation.
Investors reacted positively to the announcement, with Samsung shares climbing as much as 6.51% before settling at a gain of 3.67%, closing at 310,500 won, according to CNBC.
On the manufacturing side, the chip is built using Samsung's 1c DRAM process — its sixth-generation 10nm-class technology — with a logic base die produced on a 4-nanometer node at Samsung Foundry, the company said. Advanced low-power design and optimized packaging improved energy efficiency by 16% and thermal resistance by more than 14% compared to the prior generation.
