Memorychip supplier AP Memory Technology Corp (愛普科技) yesterday said it expects to see the first revenue contribution from licensing its intellectual property (IP) linked to advanced packaging technologies used in artificial-intelligence (AI) accelerator chips in the next year.
That would be major progress in its strategy of shifting its focus to supplying very-high-bandwidth memory (VHM) chips used in mainstream AI applications from chips for crypto mining.
Licensing IP used in AI chips appears to be the first step. AP Memory said it is in discussion with several customers to grant its IP to develop silicon interposer, a key part of the advanced packaging technology for AI chips.
Photo courtesy of AP Memory Technology Corp
The company yesterday declined to identify Samsung Electronics Co as one of the potential customers who has adopted or intend to adopt its technology.
“We cannot comment on specific customers,” AP Memory vice president Liu Chin-hung (劉景宏) told investors. “We are in talks with more than one customer to license our IP and provide other services as well. We expect to see revenue contribution within a year at the earliest.”
“We have received a license fee from some customers,” Liu said.
AP Memory shares closed at NT$348 on Wednesday, up from NT$174 at the beginning of this year. Investors consider AP Memory one of the beneficiaries of the AI boom.
Apart from IP licensing, AP Memory also aims to offer its VHM technology for AI chips, replacing the mainstay high-bandwidth memory (HBM) developed by the world’s top three memorychip makers — Samsung, Micron Technology Inc and SK Hynix Inc.
Some AI accelerator chip suppliers have approached AP Memory seeking potential supply of VHM chips as supplies of HBM chips are scarce, Liu said.
Spiking demand for AI algorithms, a large-language-model to generate data and text, has boosted demand for HBM chips, Liu said.
Some projects have entered the proof-of-concept phase, the first of six or more phases of development before a product enters mass production, Liu said.
It would take one to three years for one such project to yield results, AP Memory chairman and chief executive officer Chen Wen-liang (陳文良) said.
As a result, the company’s AI business group would be in the trough in next two quarters in terms of revenue, Chen said.
Falling demand for older-generation chips used in crypto mining is also a factor, he said.
New-generation chips are to enter production next year, he said.
The company’s AI business group accounted for 10 percent of its total revenue last quarter, with 90 percent from supplying memory chips used in Internet-of-Things devices.
AP Memory’s net profit in the second quarter soared 277 percent to NT$389.74 million (US$12.32 million) from NT$101.04 million in the first quarter. On an annual basis, net profit contracted 17 percent from NT$456.57 million.
Earnings per share rose to NT$2.35 from NT$0.62 the previous quarter. That represented a decline from NT$2.83 a year earlier.
The company expects revenue to grow in the second half of the year thanks to inventory replenishment demand from customers.
For the full year, the company expects revenue to be flat or grow slightly from NT$5.1 billion last year.
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