HBM3E price −90.5% WoW; SK Hynix HBM4 bit share jumps to ~70%
Silicon Analysts Weekly for the week of 2026-10-05 to 2026-10-12: HBM3E price −90.5% WoW; SK Hynix HBM4 bit share jumps to ~70%. A sourced, provenance-marked briefing on AI-chip supply-chain and pricing movements — HBM pricing, wafer pricing, foundry and CoWoS capacity, per-chip bill-of-materials cost, and HBM qualification status — derived from public data. Part of the Silicon Analysts semiconductor data layer.
The take
The −90.5% WoW read on HBM3E spot pricing is the loudest signal this week — treat it as a spot-market air pocket, not a structural collapse, because the supply picture is tightening: SK Hynix's 2026 HBM4 bit share revised up to ~70% (from 54%) while Samsung is flagging HBM4 at $4+/Gb by 2027. Readers tracking GPU costs should note that CoWoS capacity estimates for 2027 now diverge materially (141k–170k wafers/month), making allocation visibility the harder problem than DRAM pricing.
What moved this week
Samsung × NVIDIA Vera Rubin (HBM3E 12-Hi) — now Volume shipping (source)
NVIDIA CoWoS-L customer allocation — now 2026 510,000–700,000 wafers (estimates diverge; ~605,000 midpoint) (was 2026-Q4 ~60% of TSMC CoWoS allocation; ~515,000 wafers (510,000 CoWoS-L) at TSMC annually) (source)
TSMC N3 ramp — now 180,000 wafers per month by Q4 2026 (was ~150k–180k+ wafers/month currently, with targets of 180k–210k wafers/month by 2026–2027) (source)
TSMC CoWoS capacity — now ~141,000–170,000 wafers per month in 2027, with readings diverging materially (was ~70,000 wafers/month (2025 current); targeting ~120,000–130,000 wafers/month by end-2026) (source)
TSMC SoIC 6µm pitch ramp — null mass production commenced 2025 at 6µm bond pitch (source)
SK Hynix HBM4 HBM bit share — ▲ now 2026 ~70% (was 2026 54%) (source)
SK Hynix HBM bit share — ▼ now 2026-Q2 50% (was ~60%) (source)
HBM Price per GB by Generation — HBM3E — −90.5% WoW · full history
RUNPOD H200 on-demand $/GPU-hr — −21.8% WoW · full history
TSMC 28 annual wafer starts — −7.7% WoW · full history
MAINSTREAM CPU gross margin — +3.0pp WoW · full history
DDR5 16GB SPOT spot $/unit — +0.9% WoW · full history
Supply-chain & pricing signals
Silicon photonics market reaches $40B in 2026; co-packaged optics to exceed 50% of optical chips — LightCounting data shows optical transceiver market at ~$40B (2026) with silicon-photonics transceivers reaching >50% market share for first time. Co-packaged optics (CPO) adoption by Nvidia ecosystem and major cloud operators signals data-movement efficiency becoming parity-cost with compute in AI infrastructure; optical chip market forecast to grow 4x ($4B→$15B by 2031). (PR Newswire) · _In our data:_ NVIDIA — 2 developments tracked this quarter · NVIDIA storyline
Samsung HBM4 prices to more than double in 2027, reaching $4+/Gb — Severe pricing pressure on HBM4 supplies will constrain AI accelerator costs and OEM margins through 2027. Samsung's push for 3x HBM3E pricing ($4+/Gb vs $1.50/Gb) while ramping HBM4 to 80% of HBM revenue signals structural undersupply lasting beyond 2027, directly impacting data center capex efficiency. (Korea Herald) · _In our data:_ Samsung — 3 developments tracked this quarter · Samsung storyline · HBM price by generation · HBM market share by vendor
AMD demand outrunning supply through 2027; CEO signals sustained capacity expansion — Lisa Su's confirmation of structural demand-supply imbalance and $10B+ Taiwan commitment (TSMC, ASE, SPIL) signals AMD confidence in multi-year GPU/accelerator demand. Supports TSMC capacity expansion trajectory but underscores foundry bottleneck persisting into 2027. (The Next Web) · _In our data:_ TSMC storyline
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Sourced public intelligence, not insider data. Qualification status changes publish automatically once corroborated, not after human review. Full timelines on the HBM Qualification Tracker.