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Samsung is expected to more than double output of its HBM4 and HBM4E DRAM

562 points · 458 comments · giuliomagnifico

  1. y1n0 · · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve often wondered about die thinning. I mean just looking at sd cards and micro sd etc, it was clear that there had to be a thinning step (or many steps) and it seemed amazing to me that such a complex step could be economically viable. And yet it clearly is. All a matter of being able to operate at scale I guess.

    It’s not a step I’ve seen discussed very much, so it was kind of neat to see it discussed front and center in a lay article like this.

    1. KurSix · · focus · HN ↗
      Yeah, the scale is kind of mind-bending. You're taking something that's already extremely fragile, grinding most of its thickness away, handling it through several more process steps, and somehow doing that cheaply enough for mass-market products.
      1. xadhominemx · · focus · HN ↗
        The critical back end step for HBM is thermal compression bonding - where they actually compress 13 very thin die separated by solder balls. Cracking is a major issue.
        1. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
          We are getting so many technologies like this that are so insanely specialized and require such deep knowledge of physical processes that some event like a 1918 flu that kills 10% of the population could take out enough people that we'd be unable to make things like this for years as we fill in the missing knowledge workers.

          It's just crazy how far down the scale we're tickling atoms these days.

          1. benj111 · · focus · HN ↗
            Surely we'd have had the same issue during the Spanish flu? Any examples?
            1. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
              Not really at all. Between those dates and now the world has become fully global and concentration of knowledge has massively occurred. The past world was much more highly distributed, far less technical, and far more redundant.
          2. nextaccountic · · focus · HN ↗
            Maybe Covid killed a smaller but nonzero amount of technologies?
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