SK hynix Inc. has developed HBM3E¹, the next generation of highest-specification DRAM for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The company said a customer’s evaluation of samples is underway.

According to the company, the successful development of HBM3E comes on top of its experience as the industry’s sole mass provider of HBM3. HBM3E is the extended version of HBM3, which delivers the world’s best specifications. With its experience as the supplier of the industry’s largest volume of HBM products and mass-production readiness level, SK hynix plans to mass-produce HBM3E from the first half of next year. To this end, it aims to solidify its unrivaled leadership in AI memory market.

The latest product meets the industry’s highest standards of speed according to SK hynix. Additionally, it meets key specifications for AI memory products. These include capacity, heat dissipation, and user-friendliness.

In terms of speed, HBM3E can process data up to 1.15TB/sec. This is equivalent to processing more than 230 full-HD movies of 5GB-size each in a second.

In addition, the product comes with a 10% improvement in heat dissipation. It was realized with the adoption of cutting-edge technology Advanced Mass Reflow Molded Underfill, or MR-MUF², onto the latest product. It also provides backward compatibility³. Accordingly, it enables adoption of the latest product even onto the systems prepared for the HBM3 without a design or structure modification.

“We have a long history of working with SK hynix on High Bandwidth Memory for leading-edge accelerated computing solutions,” said Ian Buck, Vice President of Hyperscale and HPC Computing at NVIDIA. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with HBM3E to deliver the next generation of AI computing.”

Sungsoo Ryu, Head of DRAM Product Planning at SK hynix, said the company, through the development of HBM3E, has strengthened its market leadership by further enhancing the completeness of HBM product lineup. Specifically, HBM is in the spotlight amid the development of AI technology. “By increasing the supply share of the high-value HBM products, SK hynix will also seek a fast business turnaround.”

¹HBM (High Bandwidth Memory): A high-value, high-performance memory that vertically interconnects multiple DRAM chips. Accordingly, it enables a dramatic increase in data processing speed in comparison to earlier DRAM products. HBM3E is the extended version of the HBM3 and the 5th generation of its kind, succeeding the previous generations HBM, HBM2, HBM2E and HBM3.

²MR-MUF: a process of attaching chips to circuits and filling the space between chips with a liquid material when stacking chips instead of laying a film to improve efficiency and heat dissipation

³Backward Compatibility: an ability to allow interoperability between an older and a new system without modification to the design, especially in information technology and computing spaces. A new memory product with backward compatibility allows continued use of the existing CPUs and GPUs without modifications to design.