The demand for high-performance processors for AI training is skyrocketing, and as a result the demand for the components used in these processors is increasing. So much so that SK hynix this week publicly announced that the company’s high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production capacity has been sold out for the remainder of 2024, and even most of 2025 has also been sold out.
SK hynix currently produces various types of HBM memory for customers such as Amazon, AMD, Facebook, Google (Broadcom), Intel, Microsoft, and of course, NVIDIA. NVIDIA has been a particularly prolific consumer of HBM3 and HBM3E memory for its H100/H200/GH200 accelerators, as it also strives to meet the still-unsatisfied (and unfulfilled) demand for its accelerators.
As a result, HBM memory orders, which had been placed months earlier, are now backlogged until 2025 as chip vendors seek to secure supplies of the memory stacks critical to their success.
This makes SK hynix the second HBM memory vendor in recent months to announce that the memory is sold out through 2025, following Micron’s previous announcement regarding its HBM3E production. However, of the two announcements, SK hynix could be said to be the most significant, because the South Korean company’s HBM production capacity is much larger than Micron. So, while things were only “interesting” with the smallest of the Big Three memory manufacturers selling out by 2025, things are now even more concerning (and limited) because SK hynix is too.
SK hynix currently controls about 46% – 49% of the HBM market, and its share is not expected to fall significantly by 2025, according to market tracking firms Trend Strength. In contrast, Micron’s share of the HBM memory market is between 4% and 6%. Since both companies’ HBM supplies have been sold out for most of 2025, we may be looking at a scenario where more than 50% of the industry’s total HBM3/HBM3E supply for the coming quarter is already sold out.
This makes Samsung the only member of the group not to comment on HBM’s request so far. While memory is a highly fungible commodity product, it would be surprising if Samsung doesn’t face similar demand. And, ultimately, all of this leads to an industry experiencing a shortage of HBM3 memory.
Separately, SK hynix said that it is sampling the HBM3E 12-Hi 36GB stack with customers and will begin volume shipments in the third quarter.