SK Hynix is planning to start mass production of HBM4E in 2026, a company research said.

SK Hynix originally planned to start mass production of the Gen 7 high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in 2027.

But SK Hynix team leader and researcher Kwi Wook Kim said during International Memory Week 2024 held in Seoul on Monday that the two year period between new generations of HBM has been shortened to one year.

HBM4E will be the first chip from SK Hynix to be made through its 10-nanometer (nm) class Gen 6 (1c) DRAM.

A SK Hynix source told TheElec that its HBM4E will be made of 32Gb DRAM and use 1c DRAM as the core die.

HBM4E will continue to use 1b DRAM, the prior generation, as the core dies, they added.

However, SK Hynix is still conceptualizing HBM4E and has not decided on how many stacks it would have or the bonding method.

Researcher Kim said it was too early to apply hybrid bonding for HBM4.

Rival Samsung said in January that it plans to start mass production of HBM4 in 2026, so SK Hynix’s fast-track of HBM4E may also affect its production schedule.