Samsung is making a big comeback in the high-tech chip world. On Wednesday, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, Song Jai-hyuk, announced that their newest AI memory chip, the HBM4, is performing exceptionally well. He told reporters at the SEMICON Korea 2026 event in Seoul that the manufacturing process is running smoothly and that customers are very happy with the results.
This news marks a major turning point for Samsung. Song admitted that the company struggled to keep up with customer demands for a short time. However, he believes they have finally returned to their usual world-class standards. Samsung plans to start mass-producing and shipping these HBM4 chips to major clients later this month.
What makes these chips stand out is their incredible speed. While the industry standard usually sits around 8 gigabits per second, Samsung’s chips reach 11.7 gigabits. Song explained that Samsung has a unique edge because it handles every part of the process itself. The company makes the memory, builds the foundations in its own factories, and handles the final packaging. By doing everything under one roof, Samsung can make sure all parts of the chip work together perfectly for AI tasks.
Looking forward, Samsung wants to make chips even more efficient. They are designing “custom” chips that can handle some of the heavy lifting usually done by a computer’s main processor. This change could cut power usage nearly in half. They also introduced a new idea called “zHBM,” where they stack memory directly on top of logic chips. This could boost speed four times over while using much less electricity.
The SEMICON Korea event shows just how competitive this industry has become. More than 550 companies, including big names like Nvidia and Intel, joined the fair this year. Even competitors like SK hynix admit that the next decade will bring huge technical hurdles. However, Samsung remains confident that its ability to build everything in-house will keep it ahead of the pack as the AI boom continues.
