An obscure consumable has become the clearest tell on Samsung’s high-bandwidth memory plans: glass carriers, the temporary supports that keep an HBM wafer from warping while it is ground thin.
Samsung intends to expand outsourced cleaning of those carriers from 20,000 sheets a month this year to 50,000 in 2027. Analysts treat the 2.5-fold increase as a proxy for at least a doubling of the HBM4 family, which spans HBM4 and HBM4E, even after accounting for reuse.
The expansion rests on better yields. Industry sources put HBM4 yields near 80 percent now, against below 60 percent when output began. One faulty die spoils a whole stack, so the gain releases a large share of wafers for sale.
Total HBM output is expected to climb almost 40 percent, to roughly 250,000 wafers a month. The mix moves as well: the HBM4 generation should reach about four fifths of shipments next year, up from close to 40 percent today.
Revenue is following. Samsung has guided third-quarter HBM4 sales to more than triple sequentially, after passing $1B within three months of February shipments. With each HBM4 chip priced around double HBM3E, and memory delivering almost all of company operating profit, higher volume translates directly to earnings.
