Samsung announced its earnings for the third quarter earlier today. A large part of its earnings call was spent discussing memory chips since those are considered the company's biggest source of profit. However, the company had problems getting its high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips approved by Nvidia, the world's biggest AI chip firm.
Now, the company has hinted that Nvidia has approved its flagship HBM chips.
Samsung's HBM3E chips likely approved by Nvidia, shipments likely to start soon
During Samsung Electronics' conference call with investors, a Kim Jae-june, Vice President of Samsung Electronics' Memory Business said, “We are currently mass-producing both eight-layer and 12-layer HBM3E products.” Usually, mass production begins only after a client has approved the quality of chips, and in this case, it appears that Samsung's 8-layer and 12-layer HBM3E chips have been approved by Nvidia.
Kim noted that the company has made significant progress in meeting quality standards set by a major customer (most likely Nvidia). Nvidia's latest GPUs are being gobbled up by firms like Meta and Microsoft for AI services. And Nvidia's GPUs use HBM memory. As of now, Nvidia uses Micron's and SK Hynix's HBM memory chips in its AI GPUs.
Samsung had been struggling to get its HBM chips approved by Nvidia. Nvidia approved some of its lower-tier chips but only for GPUs that are meant to be sold to Chinese firms. If Samsung manages to ship its HBM3E chips to Nvidia, it would get a lot of revenue and profit from those chips.
The South Korean firm said that in the third quarter of 2024, the sales of its HBM chips rose by 70% compared to the previous quarter. It also noted that sales of its fifth-generation HBM3E chips are expected to contribute 50% of all HBM sales. These chips will reportedly be sold to multiple customers, which could include AMD.
Samsung also said it is already developing HBM4 chips and its mass production is expected to start in the second half of 2025.
