Samsung aims to complete development of 3D Cube-H, its hybrid bonding technology for 3D logic chips, by early next year, according to Korean media reports. The technology is primarily intended for ultra-high-performance AI chips. Korean media said that if Samsung succeeds, it could strengthen its competitive position in next-generation AI chips and lay the groundwork for winning Big Tech customers for its foundry business.

Samsung says memory shortages will get worse in 2027, and supply constraints will persist into 2028, with up to 70% of capacity secured by long-term agreement customers. 🔗

Samsung's advanced EUV process leak mentions temperature and a solvent. There are 2 places this could be used, both for Metal Oxide Resist (MOR). Heated solvent developer has been published on for this, although AFAIK no benefit has been observed yet. And industry is leaning toward dry develop anyway which has clear benefits. Edge Bead Removal (EBR) for wet MOR. In the spin coat process, the photoresist at the edge of the wafer needs to be cleaned off in the track to prevent contamination of the robotics that grip the wafer. It's very hard to clean MOR with a solvent; it leaves trace metals behind. Since a single metal atom could kill a chip, this is a problem. There are 2 ways the industry is dealing with this now. One is a formulated EBR solvent plus an acid. It's unclear whether this will prove to be 100% reliable. The other is an expensive edge protection layer process that protects the wafer edge before MOR is coated. This is known to work, but it adds a lot of extra steps and cost. So a heated, formulated EBR chemical could also be used to enhance the first method. I've not seen anything on this yet; it would be a brand-new process tech.

Samsung plans to spend about ₩84.4 trillion on capital projects in 2026 and expects AI-driven memory demand to exceed industry supply in 2027. Q3 revenue rose 14% from the previous quarter to ₩195.3 trillion, while operating profit increased 20% to ₩107.4 trillion. Its semiconductor division, Device Solutions (DS), reported revenue of ₩147.1 trillion and operating profit of ₩106.5 trillion. Samsung said strong server demand pushed memory prices higher across applications. Its memory business posted record quarterly revenue and operating profit as it prioritized AI products amid capacity constraints. HBM4 sales expanded substantially, and demand for server SSDs remained strong. For Q4, Samsung expects new CPU and GPU platforms to support memory demand. It plans to increase sales of HBM, server DRAM and SSDs, while expanding supplies of high-speed server DDR5 and QLC SSDs. Capital spending reached ₩29 trillion in Q3, up ₩12.2 trillion from Q2. DS accounted for ₩27.2 trillion of that spending. The full-year DS budget is ₩76.8 trillion. That covers both memory and foundry investment, including new fabs and other infrastructure to support AI and high-performance computing. Samsung also expects AI infrastructure investment to reach a record in 2027. It plans to pursue multi-year customer agreements to build a more stable sales base.