SEOUL, Feb. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday it has developed the fifth generation high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips with 12 layers of DRAM chips, helping it lead the booming market for advanced chips.

With the industry’s largest capacity of 36 gigabytes (GB), Samsung Electronics said it plans to mass-produce the product in the first half of the year.

HBM chips are gaining popularity due to their essential role in powering generative AI systems, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Samsung Electronics said the new HBM3E 12H offers 50 percent improvement over its predecessor, the fourth-generation HBM3 8H, in both performance and capacity.

It can process data at a speed of up to 1,280GB per second, equivalent to the ability to upload or download over 40 UHD movies of 30GB capacity in just one second.

The company said it has begun delivering samples of the HBM3E 12H to its customers.

Samsung Electronics credits its Advanced Thermal Compression Non-Conductive Film (Advanced TC NCF) technology for enabling 12-layer stacked products to meet HBM package specifications while maintaining the same height as 8-layer stacked products.

Samsung Electronics said it will maintain its HBM supply capacity at the highest level in the industry this year, operating with 2.5 times more HBM production capacity than last year, in a bid to meet rising demand for AI chips.

The sixth generation HBM4 is also on track for sampling in 2025 and mass production in 2026, the company added.

Samsung Electronics said it will develop innovative products that meet the high-capacity solution needs of customers who provide AI services and make constant effort to develop technologies for high-level stacking for HBM chips in a bid to lead the high-capacity HBM market.

(Yonhap)