HBM Battle Heats Up: Micron Reportedly Hints 2026 Sell-Out, SK hynix Yet to Confirm
2025-08-13
While Micron boosted its Q4 FY2025 revenue forecast to $11.2 billion on August 12, ZDNet and New Daily report that the company has unexpectedly become the first of the big three memory giants to hint at a full sell-out of its 2026 HBM supply. In contrast, HBM leader SK hynix has yet to make a similar announcement, as per the reports.
Citing Micron Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana, New Daily notes that the company has spent the past few months negotiating with customers over its 2026 HBM supply and is confident it will sell out the entire allocation. Sadana added that the shipments will primarily feature 12-Hi HBM3E, alongside some HBM4.
As ZDNet points out, Micron also highlighted major yield improvements for its 12-Hi HBM3E, noting that the ramp-up has progressed much faster than the 8-Hi version and that current yields have already surpassed it.
As New Daily observes, Micron’s “sold-out” announcement reflects its accelerated finalization of supply contracts with key customers, likely including NVIDIA and other global tech giants. On June 10th, Micron announced it had shipped 36GB 12-Hi HBM4 samples to key customers, reportedly makes it the second of the big three memory makers to reach the HBM4 sample stage.
Noise Around SK hynix and Samsung
On the other hand, while some insiders expect SK hynix to announce a sell-out soon, ZDNet notes concerns over its contract finalization progress. At its Q2 earnings call, the company said it had visibility into next year’s HBM supply but gave no details—unlike the first half of 2024, when it confidently declared 2025’s allocation sold out, the report adds.
Notably, ZDNet suggests that SK hynix had initially planned to finalize 2026’s HBM supply with NVIDIA by mid-2025, but negotiations dragged into this month. Despite several meetings between top executives, the two sides have struggled to reconcile differences over volume commitments and HBM4 pricing, as per the report.
As per ZDNet, HBM4 is expected to double the number of I/Os compared to the previous generation, expand the core die area, and outsource the base (logic) die to TSMC. As a result, the industry reportedly anticipates HBM4 pricing to rise roughly 30% above 12-Hi HBM3E, reaching around $500 per unit.
Meanwhile, although recent rumors suggest that Samsung’s 12-high HBM3E is close to passing NVIDIA’s verification, these reports remain unverified. On the HBM4 front, Yonhap cites Micron’s Sadana, noting that Micron’s HBM4 uses the proven 1ß process node from HBM3E, while Samsung aims to adopt the newer 1c node, which demands additional validation. The 1ß node represents Micron’s 5th-generation 10nm-class DRAM, whereas the 1c node—the next generation—is Samsung’s planned choice for HBM4.
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