At Samsung’s booth during “SEDEX 2025,” held on Oct. 22 at COEX in Seoul’s Gangnam District, physical samples of the company’s sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, HBM4 and HBM3E, are on display. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung Electronics has dismantled the dedicated high-bandwidth memory (HBM) development team it created just last year and folded its engineers into the broader DRAM development division, industry sources said Thursday — a move interpreted as a sign of growing confidence in the company’s next-generation HBM technology.
According to industry officials, Samsung briefed executives on the restructuring plan during an internal meeting earlier in the day. Under the overhaul, the HBM Development Team within Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) division has been dissolved, and its staff reassigned to a design unit under the DRAM Development Office. Son Young-soo, the executive who previously led the HBM team, will now head the design unit.
Engineers formerly dedicated to HBM will continue developing HBM4 and HBM4E under the new structure.
Samsung formed the standalone HBM Development Team in July 2024, shortly after Vice Chairman Jeon Young-hyun took over as head of the DS division. The restructuring was widely seen as a response to the company’s loss of market leadership to SK hynix in the fast-growing HBM segment — a key component for AI accelerators.
This photo provided by Samsung Electronics Co. shows the company’s semiconductor production facility in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
The latest reorganization, however, suggests Samsung believes it has secured meaningful technological gains in next-generation HBM. The company has recently strengthened partnerships with major global chip and AI firms — including Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI and Broadcom — setting the stage for an expansion in HBM shipments beginning next year.
Although Samsung fell to third place in the HBM market in the second quarter of this year, analysts expect a rebound driven by HBM4 supply expansion. Market tracker TrendForce forecasts Samsung will command more than 30 percent of the global HBM market by 2026.
Core leadership within Samsung’s memory business remains unchanged. The company plans to finalize the reshuffle this week and hold a global strategy meeting early next month to review its 2025 roadmap.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
