According to a process development engineer at SK hynix's future technology research institute, who spoke with Damnang, SK hynix is reportedly facing challenges in developing hybrid bonding technology for its HBM memory. These issues are significant enough that SK hynix has not yet begun production of samples, while Samsung has reportedly already sent out samples of HBM manufactured using hybrid bonding to customers. If true, this represents a major setback for SK hynix, whose HBM has held the top spot in global market share by revenue. This could potentially lead to a loss of market share among customers who require higher capacities, better performance, and more advanced technology from their HBM suppliers.

For those unfamiliar, hybrid bonding creates a permanent bond between two silicon chips using embedded metal bumps that are fused together to form a single chip. Multiple dies or entire silicon wafers can be connected by stacking the back ends of two chips together. This technology eliminates traditional chip bumps and directly bonds copper interconnections between the two chips. Essentially, hybrid bonding can create shorter distances, reducing latency and improving performance, lowering signal distortion, and offering many other benefits.Whether any of this will impact SK hynix's market share depends on customer needs and their respective opinions. For example, among HBM shipments, which are now dominated by HBM3E and HBM4, SK hynix is the leading manufacturer with a 50% share, while Samsung holds 33%. SK hynix has experienced a slight decline, as the company previously captured 64% of the global spending on HBM memory but is now down to 50% as Samsung gains momentum.