SK Hynix Inc. signage on the firm’s workplace in Seongnam, South Korea, on Monday, April 22, 2024. SK Hynix is scheduled to launch earnings figures on April 25. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures
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SK Hynix shares surged greater than 9% Thursday morning after the corporate mentioned it has began mass manufacturing of a brand new model of its high-bandwidth reminiscence chips and goals for supply by year-end.
The product could be the world’s first 12-layer model of HBM3E, which refers back to the newest technology of a complicated reminiscence chip that is able to dealing with high-end generative synthetic intelligence work.
SK Hynix mentioned the chip would have a 36 gigabyte capability, the most important amongst present HBM chips. That is a 50% enhance in capability from the corporate’s earlier eight-layer chip, which it began mass producing in March, whereas sustaining the identical thickness, the corporate mentioned.
The South Korean large has been a essential provider of the high-bandwidth reminiscence chips catering to AI chipsets for corporations like Nvidia. It plans to ship the most recent product by the tip of the 12 months.
The event got here because the world’s second-largest reminiscence chipmaker seeks to proceed its dominance within the AI reminiscence chip market.
HBM is a kind of dynamic random entry reminiscence, often called DRAM, the place chips are vertically stacked to save lots of area and cut back energy consumption. SK Hynix, Micron Expertise and Samsung Electronics are the three essential producers of HBM chips.
In a single day stateside, Micron issued surprisingly sturdy gross sales and revenue forecasts for its fiscal first quarter, a sign of continued advantages from booming demand for HBM chips. The most important U.S. maker of laptop reminiscence chips expects first-quarter revenue of $1.74 per share on $8.7 billion in income. That beat market projections for income of $1.65 per share on $8.28 billion in income, based on LSEG consensus estimates.
Buoyed by Micron’s upbeat forecasts and SK Hynix’s announcement, Asian chip shares rallied Thursday morning, with Tokyo Electron climbing 7%, Advantest leaping 5%. The world’s largest reminiscence chipmaker Samsung Electronics superior over 3%.
The benchmark South Korean blue chip Kospi index rose 2%.
— Reuters contributed to the story.
