SK hynix honors Onto Innovation for advanced HBM inspection

Onto Innovation announced Oct. 12, 2026, that it received the Best Partner Award for technology achievement from SK hynix for identifying subsurface defects during high-bandwidth memory production.

The award recognizes inspection systems used to prevent yield loss as memory manufacturers assemble complex multi-layer die stacks for artificial intelligence compute engines.

Global high-bandwidth memory capacity will expand by greater than 50% by 2027 to meet server demand, according to TrendForce data cited in the release.

SK hynix presented the honor during its 25th Anniversary Partners Day on Sept. 28, 2026, an annual recognition event held by the chipmaker's Co-Growth Council.

SK hynix named Onto Innovation as the only supplier honored for technology achievement during the ceremony, citing joint progress in defect prevention and metrology systems.

SK hynix Chief Executive Officer Kwak Noh-jung presented the award in person to Ryan Hwang, regional general manager of Onto Innovation Korea.

Close engineering work between the two firms helped fab lines identify hidden flaws that damage production yields, Onto Innovation Chief Executive Officer Mike Plisinski said.

Rapid changes in memory architecture require flexible inspection systems that adapt across successive generations of high-bandwidth memory, Plisinski said.

The recognition centers on Onto Innovation's Dragonfly G5 system, a specialized optical inspection tool deployed in advanced packaging facilities.

The system provides inline process control by detecting submicron defects down to 150 nanometers across heterogeneous integration steps, according to tool specifications.

The Dragonfly G5 platform operates at more than three times the wafer throughput of earlier inspection models, according to company technical documentation.

Onto Innovation integrated multi-angle illumination channels into the tool to raise signal-to-noise ratios when scanning faint optical flaws beneath wafer surfaces.

The optical hardware pairs with artificial intelligence algorithms to sort genuine defects from surface noise during high-speed wafer sweeps, the company said.

Process control challenges have grown more acute as the memory industry transitions from eight-layer stacks to 12-high and 16-high configurations.

Taller stacks require grinding dynamic random-access memory wafers to extreme thinness before stacking, leaving silicon dies fragile during subsequent handling.

Subsequent assembly steps such as temporary bonding, wafer thinning and thermal compression introduce mechanical stress that causes micro-cracks inside the silicon.

Subsurface cracks often evade conventional surface-scan inspection tools, remaining undetected until final electrical package testing, according to packaging engineers.

Detecting cracks after final packaging destroys the entire stack of 12 or 16 premium dies, generating severe financial write-downs on advanced packaging lines.

Inline optical metrology allows SK hynix to catch damaged dies before thermocompression bonding, protecting expensive assemblies from compound defect propagation.

SK hynix has led shipments of fifth-generation HBM3E memory modules, serving as the primary supplier to Nvidia accelerated computing hardware.

The memory maker is ramping 12-high HBM3E production volumes while completing design verification for upcoming 16-high memory cubes.

Each layer addition tightens thermal and mechanical tolerances, making defect metrology as critical to final margins as front-end lithography yields.

Onto Innovation, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, has expanded its equipment portfolio to target advanced wafer-level packaging and chiplet interconnects.

The company supplies inspection and metrology tools to leading foundries, logic manufacturers and memory suppliers expanding heterogeneous integration capacity.

Process control equipment demand has outpaced general fab tool spending as chipmakers invest heavily to raise yields on high-value artificial intelligence silicon.

The notice does not state the monetary value of equipment deliveries under the partnership, and SK hynix has not published a separate vendor award notice on its official newsroom.

Onto Innovation scheduled an analyst event for December 2026 to brief institutional investors on packaging market adoption and business operations.

The equipment supplier will also exhibit its advanced packaging inspection portfolio at the SEMICON Europa industry conference opening Nov. 10, 2026, in Munich.