Samsung preps for advanced 3D chip packaging, getting ready for HBM4 in 2025

Samsung is preparing to launch 3D packaging services for HBM within the next 12 months. The new technology will be introduced for HBM4, ready for the next-gen AI GPUs of the future, which will be released in 2025.

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The company held its Samsung Foundry Forum 2024 in San Jose, California, and teased its new 3D packaging technology for HBM chips in a public event, with current-gen HBM memory chips packaged mostly with 2.5D technology.

NVIDIA is about to introduce its new Blackwell B100, B200, and GB200 AI chips which will use the latest HBM3E memory, but its next-gen Rubin GPU architecture was teased just weeks ago, with the next-gen Rubin R100 AI GPU to feature next-generation HBM4 memory. Rubin will enter mass production in Q4 2025, using TSMC's newer N3 node and new CoWoS-L advanced packaging.

• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen R100 AI GPU: TSMC 3nm with CoWoS-L packaging, next-gen HBM4 in Q4 2025

The next-generation NVIDIA Rubin R100 AI GPUs will launch in 2026, meaning that HBM makers like SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron, are pumping all they can into HBM4 memory that will be one of the key parts of next-gen AI chips of the future.

• Read more: Samsung announces next-gen HBM4 memory: higher capacity, speeds, 3D packaging tech
• Read more: Samsung and SK hynix to use new 1c DRAM on next-gen HBM4 memory for future-gen AI GPUs

Samsung's new 3D packaging technology uses HBM chips stacked vertically on top of a GPU, super-speeding the chip, while current HBM chips are stacked horizontally with the GPU on a silicon interposer under the 2.5D advanced packaging. 3D packaging doesn't require a silicon interposer, or a thin substrate that resides between chips to allow them to communicate (at huge speeds) and work together.

Samsung is calling its 3D packaging technology SAINT-D, which is short for Samsung Advanced Interconnection Technology-D.