Samsung set to supply HBM3, packaging services to AMD

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s top memory chipmaker is poised to provide its high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips and turnkey packaging services to US-based fabless semiconductor designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), according to industry sources on Tuesday.

Samsung’s HBM3, a fourth-generation HBM chip model, and packaging services have recently passed a quality test by AMD, which plans to use the chips and services for its Instinct MI300X accelerators.

AMD, specialized in developing central processing units (CPU) for servers, is expanding its business in artificial intelligence accelerators, which use chip packaging and machine learning technologies to process a large amount of data efficiently.

The US company will launch Instinct MI300X in the fourth quarter of this year, which combines CPU, graphics processing unit (GPU) and HBM3.

Samsung is the only company that can provide advanced packaging solutions together with HBM products, according to industry sources.

AMD previously considered using packaging services of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), but has altered its plan as the Taiwanese foundry giant’s supply of advanced packaging couldn’t meet the US firm’s demand.

Samsung is also working on technical verification of HBM3 to provide the semiconductors and packaging services to global chip designer Nvidia Corp., sources familiar with the matter said earlier this month.   

The Korean memory chipmaker is aiming to unveil HBM3P, a fifth-generation HBM chip, in the second half of this year and more than double the current HBM production capacity and advanced packaging services next year.

Samsung’s global HBM market share, currently 46-49%, will rise 47-49% next year backed by new orders from cloud service providers, according to tech market research firm Trendforce’s forecast.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.