Nvidia and several global tech giants are bidding for SK Hynix’s fifth-generation high-bandwidth memory HBM3E.
According to Business Korea, semiconductor industry insiders say that major tech giants are already requesting HBM3E samples from SK Hynix, including AMD, Microsoft and Amazon, to name a few of the big players in the AI industry.
Simply put, if these companies have to get a sample before placing an order, a successful verification will indicate that the product passes compatibility testing. This means that the product’s yield is stable enough for mass production and marks the final stage before delivery.
HBM3E is the next generation of the current HBM3, and SK Hynix is currently the only company in the world that can mass produce HBM3 chips, so other manufacturers looking to purchase HBM3E will have to turn to it. According to reports, SK Hynix makes about 40% of its profits from HBM.
If you count Nvidia, which was the first to request samples, SK Hynix is currently under pressure to meet the needs of so many customers, and sources expect that these companies requesting samples could receive them by the end of this year.
With demand for HBM3E exploding, SK Hynix is using the latest fifth-generation 1b (10nm class) technology to accelerate volume production, which is expected to increase significantly next year.
AMD recently revealed its next-generation GPU, the MI300X, stating that it will receive HBM3 supplies from SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. The MI300X is reportedly equipped with 2.4x the HBM storage of the Nvidia H100.
In addition to Nvidia and AMD, Amazon and Microsoft are the two giants in the cloud services space, with a combined market share of more than 50%, having introduced generative AI technology and made significant additional investments in AI.
In addition, AWS, the world’s No. 1 cloud service provider operated by Amazon, recently invested $100 million to establish an AI innovation center. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Azure cloud service is expanding its partnership with OpenAI.
Market research firm TrendForce said, “Large cloud services companies like Amazon AWS and Google are developing their own ASICs and AI servers with Nvidia GPUs, which are the main drivers of the current surge in demand for HBM.”
