SK Hynix develops world’s first HBM3 DRAM chip

SK Hynix has developed the industry’s first HBM3 DRAM chip, which improved data processing speed by about 80 percent.

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) refers to a high performance DRAM product that boasts improved data processing speed by vertically stacking multiple DRAM chips. In 2013, SK Hynix became the world’s first to release the first generation HBM. After developing the second generation HBM 2, the company succeeded in mass production of the third generation HBM2E in July last year. The latest product is the fourth generation of high bandwidth memory.

HBM3 is capable of processing 819 GB of data in a second. This is equivalent to processing 163 full HD (5GB) movies in a second. The new product has improved data processing speed by 78 percent, compared to its predecessor HBM2E. This is 33 times faster than general purpose DDR4 and 16 times faster than DDR5. Unlike its predecessors, HBM3 has built-in error-correction code, a feature that self corrects data errors transmitted to DRAM cells.

SK Hynix is planning to start mass production of HBM3 from the middle of next year, when a system requiring HBM3 is expected to hit the market. The new product will come in 16 GB and 24GB versions, which is the largest capacity for DRAM products.

HBM3 is expected to be mainly used for high performance data centers. The industry prospects that the latest product will be applied to machine learning and large capacity supercomputers for climate change analysis and drug development.


Do-Young Kwak now@donga.com