By 2030, the 3D DRAM market could grow to $100 billion.

Samsung Electronics plans to launch a game-changing three-dimensional (3D) DRAM in 2025 to lead the global artificial intelligence memory market, which is currently dominated by its competitor SK Hynix. 3D DRAM chips increase the capacity per unit area by three times by vertically stacking cells instead of laying them out horizontally as is currently done. In contrast, High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) vertically interconnects multiple DRAM chips.

According to semiconductor industry sources in Seoul on Tuesday, Samsung unveiled its 3D DRAM development roadmap at Memcon 2024, a global chipmaker gathering held last month in San Jose, California.

The South Korean tech giant, headquartered in Suwon, plans to launch an early version of 3D DRAM based on its vertical channel transistor technology in 2025. This technology vertically sets a channel, the electron passageway, in the transistors that make up the cells, and wraps it with a gate as a switch.

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The company also plans to launch stacked DRAM by 2030, which can stack all cells, including capacitors.

The market size is expected to grow to $100 billion.Currently, DRAM consists of up to 62 billion cells on a substrate, with transistors densely integrated on a plane, making it difficult to avoid current leakage and interference. Due to the stacking of transistors in multiple layers in 3D DRAM, the 3D DRAM structure is expected to widen the gaps between transistors, thereby reducing current leakage and interference. It is anticipated that 3D DRAM will increase the capacity within the cell chip area, as more cells can be placed in the same area. The base capacity of 3D DRAM is 100 gigabytes (GB), which is almost three times the maximum capacity of 36GB available in current DRAM.

Industry insiders say that by 2030, the global 3D DRAM market could grow to 100 billion US dollars, although industry tracking agencies have not made predictions due to the market being in its infancy.

AI Semiconductor Market

Industry insiders say that this technology is expected to help Samsung take the throne in the global AI semiconductor industry, defeating SK Hynix, which currently dominates the AI memory field and holds a 90% share in the global HBM, AI application DRAM market. Although they have been researching this technology, Samsung's competitors, including SK Hynix and Micron Technology, have not yet announced any roadmap for 3D DRAM.

SK Hynix has introduced its 3D DRAM concept at various industry conferences. It is reported that Micron began developing 3D DRAM in 2019, with about 30 technology patents, the most among these three chip manufacturers. Chinese memory chip manufacturers have accelerated the development of 3D DRAM, as they see emerging technology as an opportunity to defeat large competitors. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has also published their research results on 3D DRAM.Increasing Capacity on Smaller Chips

For over a decade, as electronic devices equipped with DRAM (such as smartphones) have become smaller and more feature-rich, the global DRAM industry has been developing smaller chips with greater data processing capabilities. The rapid development of artificial intelligence, which requires the quick processing of vast amounts of data, has intensified this trend.

3D DRAM is expected to meet the demand for such chips because it is smaller and has a higher capacity than existing DRAM.

In the short term, the new type of semiconductor may be used in small information technology devices such as smartphones and laptops, which require high-performance DRAM to enable AI functions on their devices.

In the long term, the automotive industry is expected to use 3D DRAM because electric and autonomous vehicles need DRAM capable of processing the large amounts of data collected from the road in real time.

Reducing Critical Dimensions

Samsung is developing new technologies to lead in the field of 3D DRAM, aiming to reduce its critical dimensions to 8-9nm by 2027-2028. Currently, the latest DRAM is estimated to be around 12nm.

The company is also actively expanding its 3D DRAM research and development team. It has established a next-generation process development team at its semiconductor research center, which is responsible for the technology. Song Jaihyuk, President and Chief Technology Officer of Samsung's semiconductor business, is leading the team.Samsung appointed Micron's 3D DRAM expert Lee Siwoo as Executive Vice President last year.

Memory Upgrade Cycle Initiated

Memory, composed of DRAM and NAND products, is of paramount importance to Samsung, the world's largest memory manufacturer since 1993. Although the company has always only disclosed earnings for the DS division, the memory business is its most crucial segment, accounting for the largest share of the division's revenue and an overwhelming portion of profits. The semiconductor market is cyclical, but this is especially true for memory chips, which are more commodity-like than logic chips.

Thus, Samsung CEO Kyung's "two to three years" as the memory upgrade cycle that began at the end of last year has yet to fully unfold, which will be a key determinant in whether Samsung can achieve its set goals. The CEO stated that the DS division's revenue will return to the 2022 level this year. He also indicated that the entire semiconductor industry is expected to garner revenues of $630 billion, even surpassing 2022.

While the memory market has always been cyclical, the pandemic extended the duration of the upcycle from 2017 to 2022, with some analysts referring to it as a "bubble," driven by high demand from data centers and consumer electronics during the stay-at-home trend.

If this was a bubble, it is set to burst in 2023, leading memory manufacturers to reduce production for the first time in 20 years, a severe measure for wafer fabs that operate around the clock with staggeringly high fixed costs. For over a decade, the global memory market has been an effective oligopoly of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. Because of this, these three companies are very cautious when adjusting production, undoubtedly hoping to steadily restore memory prices to levels prior to 2023.

With high stakes, although Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron rarely directly mention each other in the past, subtle jabs have emerged among them during economic downturns.

In March last year, Park Jung-ho, then the boss of SK Hynix, stated at the company's annual shareholders' meeting that the memory chip industry had fallen into a "prisoner's dilemma." At that time, Samsung had not yet reduced its production, which was different from other companies. Park's comment implied that the rational approach would be for all three companies to jointly decrease the supply of DRAM so that the downcycle could begin and end more quickly, but one company—Samsung—was taking a different course of action.

Prior to this, when the memory recession cycle began at the end of 2022, Samsung also broke with tradition in December of that year by directly referring to its latest DDR5 DRAM as 12nm. Before this, the company had classified its DRAM as the 10nm class, so Samsung's move was aimed at emphasizing that its DRAM was better than before.Please provide the text you would like translated into English.