SK Hynix Officially Ships 12-Layer HBM4E Samples, Shares Rise Nearly 5% to Hit Record High

TradingKey - On June 18, Seoul time, SK Hynix announced that it has supplied samples of 12-layer stacked HBM4E to major customers. The company stated that, leveraging the development capabilities and mass-production experience accumulated over multiple generations of HBM, this sample delivery is progressing as scheduled. Looking ahead, it will collaborate closely with customers to ensure timely mass production.

Boosted by the news, SK Hynix shares rose nearly 5% in early trading on the Korea Exchange, hitting an intraday historic high. As of press time, the stock was up 4.32% at 2.63 million won. In mid-June, Daiwa Securities sharply raised its target price for SK Hynix to 3.6 million won and reiterated its 'Buy' rating. Its report noted that SK Hynix's second-quarter performance is expected to maintain robust growth, and memory prices are projected to rise further in the second half of the year alongside AI demand, supporting sustained earnings growth.

[Source: TradingView]

On the technical front, HBM4E delivers data transfer rates of up to 16 Gbps. Under the same power consumption, the volume of data it can process is increased by over 20% compared to the previous-generation HBM4, with read and write response times also showing improvement.

In terms of capacity, the vertically stacked 12-layer chips reach 48GB per single package, while thermal resistance is reduced by approximately 17%, making it less prone to performance throttling from overheating during prolonged, high-intensity operations. Furthermore, next-generation interface and design optimizations have further reduced data transmission latency.

An Hyun, President and Head of Development at SK Hynix, stated that the company will extend its industry-leading technological competitiveness and mass-production capabilities to HBM4E products, consolidating its technological leadership as the 'all-around AI memory provider.'

Notably, Samsung Electronics delivered its first batch of 12-layer HBM4E samples to global customers on May 29, meaning the competition between the two leading manufacturers now hinges on the concrete progress of customer qualification.

According to Counterpoint Research, SK Hynix ranked first in the global HBM market with a 58% share in the first quarter of 2026, while Samsung and Micron held 21% each. HBM4E is expected to be adopted in Nvidia's Rubin Ultra platform, planned for launch in 2027. Having samples pass customer testing first means securing a head start in subsequent customization and the race for orders.

From HBM3 and HBM3E to HBM4 and HBM4E, SK Hynix's technology roadmap maintains a rapid pace of updates. For now, sample delivery is merely the starting point of the mass-production race; whether subsequent samples can smoothly pass customer testing and whether capacity can ramp up as scheduled will be the key factors determining who secures the orders.