Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co.
As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry.
“We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit [IC] design by delivering more memory capacity,” TSMC said in a statement.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
“These cross-industry collaborations aim to provide designers with a full spectrum of proven solutions to tackle the rapidly growing demand in AI,” TSMC added.
TSMC, the world’s largest foundry service provider, has for the first time talked about its collaboration with Samsung Electronics, BusinessKorea reported on Thursday.
“Samsung and TSMC are jointly developing buffer-less HBM,” BusinessKorea quoted TSMC’s Ecosystem and Alliance Management head Dan Kochpatcharin as saying.
The collaboration is to start with HBM4, which is scheduled for mass production in the second half of next year, the magazine said.
The report contradicted a statement released by TSMC in 2022.
The company said that Samsung Memory was among the members of the newly created Open Innovation Platform (OIP) 3DFabric Alliance, together with US memorychip maker Micron Technologies Inc and SK Hynix Inc of South Korea among others. The alliance was initiated by TSMC.
Samsung Electronics memory product planning group vice president Kyungsoo Ha at the time said that by joining TSMC’s OIP 3DFabric Alliance, Samsung Memory would be able to further expand the scope of work and delivery of solutions for future HBM generations to help customers unleash system-level innovations.
TSMC last year said the alliance has made achievements through collaboration with key memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, to drive rapid growth in HBM3 and HBM3e to advance generative AI systems by delivering more memory capacity.
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