SEOUL (ANN/THE KOREA HERALD) – SK hynix, renowned as the globe’s second-largest memory chip maker, has initiated a groundbreaking chapter in the tech industry.
On Tuesday, the company proudly declared the commencement of mass production for its cutting-edge HBM3E chips, hailed as the pinnacle of DRAM technology for artificial intelligence applications.
This momentous step solidifies SK hynix’s dominance in the fiercely competitive High Bandwidth Memory market. Promising to deliver these avant-garde chips to clients by month’s end, following meticulous verification, the company remains discreet about its initial recipient, despite being a key supplier to industry titan Nvidia.
This revelation arrives on the heels of SK hynix’s announcement seven months ago regarding the inception of the fifth-generation HBM3E chips, marking yet another milestone in their illustrious journey.
With the title of the premier provider of HBM3E products firmly in its grasp, SK hynix anticipates building upon its previous triumphs with the earlier HBM3 chips through the mass production of these groundbreaking new components.
“With the success story of the HBM business and the strong partnership with customers that it has built for years, SK hynix will cement its position as the total AI memory provider,” said Ryu Sung-soo, head of HBM business at the company.
HBM chips dramatically enhance data processing speed compared to conventional DRAM products, making them indispensable memory components for AI systems, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. HBM3E, the extended version of HBM3, is the fifth generation of HBM chips.
The chipmaker said its latest HBM3E product is the industry’s best in all the aspects required for AI memory, including speed and heat control. It processes up to 1.18 terabytes of data per second, which is equivalent to processing more than 230 full-HD movies, 5 gigabytes each, in a second.
In the competitive HBM market, SK hynix was able to rapidly increase its DRAM market share through its exclusive HBM supply deal with Nvidia. Its market share in HBM3 and more advanced HBM products for Nvidia is estimated at above 80 percent, and it holds over 90 percent of the HBM3 market, according to industry sources.
Competition to secure the HBM leadership is heating up among global chipmakers.
Micron Technology, a US-based chipmaker, announced last month that it started mass production of HBM3E for Nvidia’s H200 Tensor Core graphics processing units. But industry sources say that SK hynix was the first to mass-produce the new chips considering the Korean firm’s advancement in preliminary production.
Last month, Samsung, the world’s No 1 memory chip maker, also announced that it developed HBM3E 12H, the industry’s first 12-stack HBM3E DRAM and the highest-capacity HBM product.
