Samsung Says Memory Innovation Will Double HBM5 Performance

Samsung Electronics on September 1 unveiled its "CUBE" strategy to significantly boost the capacity and bandwidth of next-generation memory while improving heat management. The company said it aims to strengthen its lead in the artificial intelligence memory market with eighth-generation high-bandwidth memory, or HBM5, and next-generation "zHBM."

Choi Jang-seok, vice president and head of new business planning at Samsung's memory division, presented the strategy on September 1 at Taiwan 2026 in Taipei, the world's largest exhibition for semiconductor materials, parts and equipment. CUBE stands for capacity, utilization, bandwidth, and efficiency. The strategy uses a three-dimensional structure, rather than simple vertical stacking, to simultaneously raise capacity, bandwidth, power efficiency and thermal efficiency.

Samsung said the approach will double HBM5 performance compared with seventh-generation HBM4E. It also plans to lower thermal resistance to 75% to 90% of existing HBM levels. The target for zHBM is performance eight times higher than HBM5. zHBM stacks HBM vertically on top of computing chips such as graphics processing units, or GPUs, and neural processing units, or NPUs. The technology is designed to sharply improve performance and power efficiency over existing HBM. Samsung also said it plans to conduct its first prototype test of next-generation NAND flash product zNAND-O in 2028.

Won Jong-hwan, Hankyung.com reporter won0403@hankyung.com