Samsung to begin full-scale supply of 5th-generation HBM in Q2

Samsung Electronics announced on Friday that its consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter of last year reached 75.8 trillion won, with an operating profit of 6.5 trillion won. Amid ongoing struggles in the semiconductor sector, the company strongly emphasizes supplying redesigned fifth-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) products in the first half of this year.

Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division reported an operating profit of 2.9 trillion won in the fourth quarter of last year, marking a second consecutive quarter of declining semiconductor profits since the second quarter. While its memory business unit recorded an operating profit of over five trillion won, the company suffered a loss exceeding two trillion won in its system semiconductor sector, which includes its foundry and system LSI business units.

The company's semiconductor struggles have been attributed to a slowdown in the mobile and PC DRAM markets and delays in securing a foothold in the HBM sector, a key area of demand. Specifically, in the fourth quarter of last year, Samsung missed its original target of supplying fifth-generation 'HBM3E' 12-layer products to U.S.-based NVIDIA. Bloomberg reported that Samsung's HBM3E 8-layer product received NVIDIA's supply approval at the end of last year.


Do-Young Kwak now@donga.com