According to reports, the unit price of the HBM4 12-layer product that SK Hynix obtained from NVIDIA in the first half of the year was around US$500, which was 60-70% more expensive than the HBM3E 12-layer product that sold for US$300 at the time.The company has become one of the first to produce this memory type and provide a ready-made solution for the AI industry.
HBM4 is said to play a crucial role in the development of next-generation AI computing hardware. Since HBM4 integrates logic circuits and semiconductors in a single package, Korean media reported that SK Hynix is expected to increase the pricing of HBM4 by up to 70% relative to HBM3E, citing higher costs and, more importantly, thanks to its exclusive partnership with NVIDIA's supply chain.
The initial supply of HBM4 to NVIDIA gives the Korean giant an advantage in competing with the likes of Samsung and Micron, and the company has been exclusively supplying Blackwell Ultra's 12-Hi HBM3E stack to NVIDIA, giving them an equal advantage in HBM4 price negotiations. However, the complexity of manufacturing HBM technology, especially using TSMC’s 4nm process as the basis, has also led to higher prices.
SK hynix seems to need to work harder to maintain its dominant position in the HBM market. It is worth noting that Samsung has recently made great progress in 1c DRAM technology. Given that the company has its own semiconductor production line, they are likely to enter NVIDIA's supply chain with HBM4, posing huge competitive pressure on SK Hynix.
