Samsung Restarts P5 Fab to Target HBM4

According to reports, Samsung Electronics is accelerating the restart of construction at its Pyeongtaek P5 fab in South Korea, aiming to secure advanced production capacity for next-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Workers at the site have been seen moving steel structures and undergoing safety training, signaling that preparations for full-scale construction are actively underway. The company is expected to officially resume groundbreaking as early as October after delaying the project last year due to a sluggish semiconductor market.

Samsung's P5 facility is designed to boost supply of HBM, a high-performance memory built by vertically stacking multiple DRAM dies to deliver significantly higher data processing speeds. The current industry frontrunner, HBM3E, is already widely used in NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs. Samsung is reportedly close to passing NVIDIA's qualification tests for HBM3E, which could pave the way for large-scale shipments this year.

Looking ahead, Samsung plans to position itself strongly in the upcoming HBM4 market, which will power NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin AI accelerators. Although Samsung trails SK hynix by roughly three months in HBM development, the company intends to close the gap quickly through aggressive capacity expansion. NVIDIA is expected to complete HBM4 quality verification in the first quarter of next year, before finalizing suppliers for its Rubin GPUs slated for launch in the second half of 2025.

To stay ahead, Samsung will introduce its 10nm-class (1c) DRAM process on available lines at the Pyeongtaek P4 fab, enabling large-scale production of HBM4 DRAM. The company has already secured internal approval for HBM4 mass production and is preparing to deliver samples for customer evaluation.

Industry insiders note that memory demand is set to recover starting next year, with HBM demand rising sharply. Samsung's early move to restart P5 construction is seen as a strategic effort to lock in capacity ahead of this expected market rebound.