[News] Micron Flags HBM4E as Start of Custom HBM Era; HBM Market Could Tilt Toward Dual-or-Single Suppliers

Memory giants are increasingly turning to custom HBM as the next growth engine. At the KeyBanc Technology Leadership Forum 2026, Micron EVP Sumit Sadana, according to Investing.com, said the shift toward custom HBM will begin with HBM4E, with the company planning to work with customers on custom SKUs.

More notably, Sadana pointed to a potential shake-up in the HBM supplier landscape. Given the time, R&D and cost involved in HBM design and qualification, he said customers are unlikely to work with all three HBM suppliers across every project—potentially pushing the market toward a two-supplier or even single-source model, as noted in the Investng.com transcript.

That would mark a significant shift from today’s landscape, where SK hynix, Samsung and Micron have all begun supplying HBM4 to NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin.

HBM’s Growing Capacity Squeeze

In the Investing.com transcript, Micron EVP Sumit Sadana highlighted the power-efficiency edge of its HBM3E, which consumes 30% less power than the next-best offering while remaining in high-volume production. But HBM’s rapid ramp-up is also putting increasing pressure on conventional DRAM supply, further tightening an already constrained memory market.

Sadana reiterated the 3:1 HBM-to-DDR trade-off: producing 100 bits of HBM3E effectively requires sacrificing around 300 bits of DDR supply. The capacity squeeze is set to intensify with newer HBM generations — as Micron moves through HBM4 and into HBM4E, that ratio is expected to worsen to nearly 4:1.

Custom HBM Gains Momentum Among Memory Leaders

At the J.P. Morgan 54th Annual Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference in May, Micron’s Global Operations EVP Manish Bhatia, via STOCK Analysis transcript, already flagged the company’s custom HBM roadmap. According to Bhatia, the company’s first HBM4E will be a JEDEC-standard product, with ramp-up scheduled for 2027.

While Micron is still using 1-beta DRAM for HBM4, Bhatia said the company is expected to transition to 1-gamma DRAM in the HBM4E era. He also confirmed that the logic dies for both standard and custom HBM4E are expected to be manufactured by TSMC.

Micron is not alone in stepping up its custom HBM push. News1 reports that SK hynix has launched a recruitment drive for its “Next Memory Strategy” division through its monthly “Highway” career hiring program. The team will focus on developing customer-tailored memory solutions and identifying new memory business opportunities, the report suggests.

That strategy is already taking shape through SK hynix’s “One Team” model. As reported by Sisa Week, unlike Samsung’s integrated, in-house approach, SK hynix’s approach brings together itself, NVIDIA, and TSMC, with NVIDIA defining the HBM requirements for its GPUs, SK hynix handling memory stacking, and TSMC manufacturing the logic die and handling packaging.

Read more

• [News] Micron Meets Less Than Half of Data Center Demand as Customers Rush to Secure Memory at “Very High” Prices
• [News] Micron Reportedly Acknowledges China’s Memory Progress While Noting Output Remains Largely Domestic

(Photo credit: Micron)