FT Interview Reveals
"Production Time Reduced by 50%"
SK Hynix announced that the yield rate (the ratio of good products among finished products) of the 5th generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM), HBM3E, has approached 80%.
According to industry sources on the 23rd, on the 21st (local time), Kwon Jae-soon, SK Hynix's yield management executive (Vice President), stated in an interview with the Financial Times (FT), "We have reduced the time required for mass production of HBM3E chips by 50%," and added, "The yield of the chip has almost reached the target of 80%."
This is the first time SK Hynix has disclosed information about the HBM3E yield externally. Semiconductor production process yields are core confidential information that companies are reluctant to reveal. The industry had estimated SK Hynix's HBM3E yield to be around 60-70%.
Vice President Kwon said, "This year, we are focusing on producing 8-layer HBM3E, which customers desire the most," and added, "Improving yield is becoming increasingly important to stay ahead in the era of artificial intelligence (AI)."
SK Hynix began mass production of the 8-layer HBM3E product in March and is currently supplying it to customers such as Nvidia. They have also secured supply contracts for volumes through next year.
Due to the HBM structure, which vertically stacks multiple DRAM chips, the manufacturing process is more complex compared to general DRAM. For this reason, HBM manufacturers have faced difficulties in stabilizing yields. In particular, for HBM3E, the yield of the key component, Through-Silicon Via (TSV), has been low at around 40-60%, prompting the industry to focus on yield improvement.
In the Q1 earnings conference call last April, SK Hynix also stated regarding HBM3E yield, "Considering the current progress, it seems possible to achieve a yield level similar to HBM3 in the near future, and we are pushing for rapid stabilization from a cost perspective."
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