Samsung Semiconductor Chief: "HBM3E 12-Stack Transition Possible as Early as Q2"

Vice Chairman Jeon Young-hyun Announces 'Enhancing Technological Capabilities' Business Strategy
Chinese Companies in Pursuit... Responding by Targeting High Value-Added Markets
"Improving 2-Nanometer Foundry Maturity and Developing 1-Nanometer Technology"

Jeon Young-hyun, Vice Chairman and Head of Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division, which leads 'Samsung Semiconductor,' stated that they will definitely improve performance in the sluggish High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) market. Specifically, he announced plans to "quickly supply the HBM3E 12-stack product to the market as early as the second quarter of this year, or at the latest from the second half."

On the 19th, at the Suwon Convention Center in Gyeonggi Province, during the '2025 Business Strategy Sharing and Dialogue with Shareholders' held after the 56th regular shareholders' meeting, Vice Chairman Jeon responded to a question asking whether the cause of Samsung Electronics' stock price slump was due to semiconductor market conditions or competitiveness. He said, "We plan to accelerate the transition to the AI DRAM market to actively respond to customer demand," and emphasized, "We are thoroughly preparing to avoid repeating last year's trial and error in the HBM4 and custom HBM markets and will achieve our goals without any setbacks."

Jeon Young-hyun, Vice Chairman and Head of the Device Solutions (DS) Division at Samsung Electronics, is announcing this year's semiconductor business strategy after the 56th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders held on the 19th at the Suwon Convention Center in Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Samsung Electronics

Regarding intensified market competition due to the low-price offensive by Chinese semiconductor companies, the policy is to respond with a strategy centered on 'high value-added products.' Vice Chairman Jeon said, "Chinese local semiconductor manufacturers are actively entering the DRAM and NAND markets, mainly targeting the low-end (low-price) market," and added, "Samsung Electronics is targeting the market focusing on high value-added products."

He continued, "We will seek differentiation in high-performance and high-capacity products such as HBM, DDR5, and server SSDs," and elaborated, "While flexibly responding to demand changes in the DDR4 market, we will further strengthen competitiveness in the high value-added market." DDR refers to a type of DRAM with Double Data Rate technology. Chinese companies mainly focus on DDR4 as a low-price product, while DDR5 is considered a high value-added product.

Vice Chairman Jeon emphasized 'strengthening advanced node competitiveness' as the direction for targeting the high value-added market. He explained, "Since Chinese companies may enter the high-end market in the future, Samsung Electronics plans to upgrade product performance one step further," adding, "We are actively applying low-power semiconductor technology to achieve performance differentiation and are developing next-generation products that reduce power consumption."

On the 19th, Samsung Electronics held its 56th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders at the Suwon Convention Center in Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Samsung Electronics

Shareholders also raised concerns about the continued sluggishness in the foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) business. Han Jin-man, Head of the Foundry Business Division, said, "We have internally conducted a thorough analysis of the foundry business operations and technology development status, and are reassessing Samsung Electronics' current position through extensive discussions with customers."

He added, "We are leading the development of 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer Gate-All-Around (GAA) technologies, and it is important to establish ourselves as a meaningful player in advanced nodes," and said, "We will focus not only on optimizing processes to meet customer needs but also on yield stabilization and ramp-up (improving mass production speed)."

Before the 'Dialogue with Shareholders,' Vice Chairman Jeon introduced the DS division's business strategy for this year, stating, "We will execute mid- to long-term strategies aimed at fundamentally restoring competitiveness." Regarding foundry, he said, "We will enhance the completeness of 2-nanometer technology and develop next-generation processes in the 1-nanometer range to establish strong technological and manufacturing capabilities in the global market." Additionally, they plan to supply high-performance, low-power semiconductors tailored for high-performance computing (HPC) beyond the existing strengths in mobile, and respond to automotive semiconductors with customer-customized solutions.

Meanwhile, the meeting held after the shareholders' meeting was attended by 10 key executives, including ▲Han Jong-hee, Vice Chairman and Head of the DX division ▲Jeon Young-hyun, Vice Chairman and Head of the DS division ▲Han Jin-man, Head of the Foundry Business Division ▲Park Yong-in, Head of the System LSI Business Division ▲Song Jae-hyuk, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the DS division ▲Jeon Kyung-hoon, CTO of the DX division ▲Yong Seok-woo, Head of the VD Business Division ▲Kim Woo-jun, Head of the Network Business Division ▲Noh Tae-moon, Head of the MX Business Division ▲Park Soon-chul, Chief Financial Officer (CFO).