Samsung has been trying hard to gain a strong foothold in the growing HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) market. But the Korean firm is struggling to secure orders for advanced HBM3E chips from major clients. And just when it looked like it might be on the right path, the firm has reportedly lost another big client, Google. The search giant planned to use Samsung’s HBM3E chip in its custom-designed AI server chips, but decided against it.
Samsung loses Google as HBM3E client amid certification hurdles
While Samsung has been heavily investing in the HBM advanced process, its HBM3E certification progress is not moving forward, which affects the supply chain. According to a report from a Taiwanese outlet, Digitimes, Google has canceled the plan of utilizing Samsung’s HBM3E chip in its AI server chips. The Mountain View company could switch to Micron as an alternative supplier.
As per the initial plan, Google wanted to acquire chips from Samsung and send them to TSMC for CoWoS packaging. It could still use TSMC’s packaging, but without Samsung in the supply chain. The report adds that MediaTek would join Google’s next-generation AI supply chain to collaborate on the development of future Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
So why did Google pull Samsung’s HBM from the project? Industry watchers believe that this could be due to Samsung’s failure to clear NVIDIA’s HBM3E certification process. The Korean firm declined to comment on customer-related matters but stated that related development plans were still being carried out as scheduled.
The publication says that Samsung’s HBM3E chip has reached the final stage of certification with NVIDIA. Earlier reports suggested that if Samsung obtains good scores in the key evaluation process, Nvidia may award the certificate in May 2025. But given that Google has switched to another supplier, industry analysts expect that the chances of passing the HBM3E qualification test are unlikely.
While its rivals, SK Hynix and Micron, are gaining a foothold in the HBM market, Samsung is still facing setbacks in this market. Time will tell if Samsung can bounce back with its 6th-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) solutions.
