SK hynix engineers vow to lead in HBM memory chip sector

A team of SK hynix engineers attend a meeting. Courtesy of SK hynix

By Lee Kyung-min

A team of SK hynix engineers said they will continue with their efforts to advance the semiconductor industry, according to the country's leading chipmaker, Thursday.

The team was the first to create the HBM3, the industry's first 12-layer memory chip, a feat achieved in 2021 followed by mass-production of the advanced HBM3 24 gigabyte (GB) package in 2022.

HBM is short for high bandwidth memory, a high-speed computer memory interface for 3D-stacked synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM).

It is used together with high-performance graphics accelerators, network devices, high-performance data centers and some supercomputers.

The first HBM memory chip was produced by SK hynix in 2013.

SK hynix HBM Product Planning Team Leader Kim Wang-su said that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly embraced by leading businesses, propelling the demand for high-performance semiconductors that underpin them.

“We will continue to fortify competitiveness in high-value and high-performance products, and solidify our global market leadership,” Kim said.

The local chipmaker's 12-layer HBM3 was able to stack Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips up to 12 layers, up from the previous maximum of eight used in 16GB products. This increases the latest product's performance capacity by 50 percent. DRAM is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell.

In simpler terms, the HBM3 with a maximum capacity of 24GB, has the same height as the previous 16 GB, but is also able to process larger amounts of data more efficiently, the firm said.

Stacking more chips on top of each other is impossible without making them slimmer. The slimmer the chips, the more likely they are to bend, leading to product defects.

Nonetheless, the problem was solved by the team's epoxy molding compound (EMC) and advanced mass reflow-molded underfill (MR-MUF) technologies.

EMC is able to safely seal and protect chips from heat or moisture. Advanced MR-MUF is more efficient compared to the current method of injecting materials between chips.