Samsung Electronics Co yesterday announced that it had started mass production of its next-generation memory chips to power artificial intelligence (AI), touting an “industry-leading” breakthrough.
The high-bandwidth HBM4 chips are seen as a key component needed to scale-up the vast data centers powering the explosion in AI.
US technology giant Nvidia Corp — the world’s most valuable company — is widely expected to be one of Samsung’s main buyers.
Photo: AFP
Samsung said it had “begun mass production of its industry-leading HBM4 and has shipped commercial products to customers.”
“This achievement marks a first in the industry, securing an early leadership position in the HBM4 market,” the South Korean company said in a statement.
Samsung said its new chip was significantly faster than older models, exceeding industry standards for processing speed by more than 40 percent.
This would satisfy “escalating demands for higher performance,” the company said.
Samsung and its South Korean rival SK Hynix Inc are already among the leading producers of high-performance memory chips, and the two companies had raced to start HBM4 production.
Research firm SemiAnalysis has reported that Micron Technology Inc might be left off Nvidia’s HBM4 supplier roster, as the battle for HBM4 dominance is heating up. However, the US chipmaker on Wednesday rebutted the report, saying that it is already in high-volume production of HBM4 and has begun shipping to customers.
Speaking at the Wolfe Research conference in New York, Micron chief financial officer Mark Murphy assured investors that the US company is producing its HBM4 memory chips in high volumes and the new product delivers performance exceeding 11 gigabits per second.
In addition, Murphy said that shipment volumes are ramping up in the first quarter, one quarter earlier than the company announced at its earnings call in December last year, Investing.com reported.
Taipei-based research firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) predicts that global memory industry revenue would surge to a peak of more than US$840 billion next year.
Samsung has already earmarked billions of dollars to expand chip production facilities, pledging to continue spending in “transitioning to advanced manufacturing processes and upgrading existing production lines to meet rising demand.”
An industry observer said the move would help Samsung seize the moment in the intensifying race for chips critical to AI infrastructure.
“Samsung struggled in the race for HBM3 chips, lagging behind its rival SK Hynix, but with the early production of HBM4, it has positioned itself as a front-runner in the competition,” Sejong University business professor Kim Dae-jong said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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