Samsung Electronics signals progress in HBM chip supply to Nvidia

Samsung Electronics on Thursday hinted at the possibility of supplying its advanced high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to the US AI giant Nvidia in the near future.

The South Korean tech giant has been struggling to have its HBM3E chips pass Nvidia's quality tests, while its local chip making rival SK hynix recently began mass-producing industry-leading 12-layer HBM3E chips, Yonhap news agency reported.

"We are currently mass-producing both eight-layer and 12-layer HBM3E products," said Kim Jae-june, vice president for memory business at Samsung Electronics, during a conference call following the release of its third-quarter earnings report.

Kim noted that the company has achieved "meaningful progress" in meeting quality testing requirements for a "major customer," expected to be Nvidia, whose GPUs are essential for AI computing.

"We expect to expand sales in the fourth quarter," he added, addressing previous concerns that Samsung Electronics had fallen behind in supplying HBM products to Nvidia.

Samsung Electronics reported that its third-quarter HBM sales rose more than 70 per cent from the previous quarter, with the fifth-generation HBM3E chips expected to contribute 50 per cent of total HBM sales in the fourth quarter.

"We are expanding sales of our eight- and 12-layer HBM3E chips to multiple customers," the company said. "We are working on improving our HBM3E in line with the next-generation GPU plans of a major customer."

Samsung Electronics said it is developing sixth-generation HBM4 products and aims to begin mass production in the second half of next year.

In its third-quarter earnings report, Samsung Electronics' semiconductor division posted a 3.86 trillion won ($2.8 billion) operating profit, missing the market expectation of 4.2 trillion won.

Shares of Samsung Electronics rose 0.17 per cent to close at 59,200 won on the Seoul main bourse, outperforming the KOSPI's 1.45 per cent drop.