SK Hynix Embraces 2.5D Fan-out Packaging for Enhanced DRAM and HBM

Propelled by advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), SK Hynix has emerged as the market leader in the HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) product category, capturing the largest market share and serving as the primary memory supplier for NVIDIA’s data center GPUs. Currently, SK Hynix is developing the next-generation HBM4, while also planning to extend its accompanying technologies to the DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) sector, aiming to more effectively leverage its technological resources.

According to Business Korea, SK Hynix is preparing a 2.5D fan-out packaging, laying the groundwork for the next generation of HBM and DRAM, ensuring its technological edge. This packaging approach is expected to reduce costs and bypass the Through-Silicon Via (TSV) process, while simultaneously increasing the number of I/O interfaces. Industry experts believe that this packaging technology is particularly suitable for GDDR (Graphics Double Data Rate) DRAM products.

SK Hynix intends to horizontally align two DRAM chips and then combine them, functioning as a single chip. The absence of a substrate beneath the chips will make them thinner, significantly reducing the installation thickness. SK Hynix plans to publicly reveal its research findings using this packaging technique next year.

In the future, HBM is expected to evolve towards greater customization, not only positioned beside the SoC (System on Chip) main chip but also transitioning to stack above it. There have been reports that SK Hynix aims to stack HBM4 in 3D on top of logic cores, somewhat similar to AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. However, this would offer higher capacity and be more cost-effective, albeit with slightly slower speeds. This approach is set to revolutionize not only the interconnectivity between logic and memory chips but also the manufacturing process of the chips themselves.

A senior official at SK Hynix stated that in the era of artificial intelligence, SK Hynix will lead the innovation in storage semiconductors, providing specialized and differentiated products tailored to each customer.