Samsung Electronics plans to use a chipmaking technology championed by rival SK Hynix, five people have said, as the world's top memory chipmaker seeks to catch up in the race to produce high-end chips used to power artificial intelligence.
The demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has boomed with the growing popularity of generative AI. But Samsung, unlike peers SK Hynix and Micron Technology, has been conspicuous by its absence in any dealmaking with Nvidia to supply the AI chip leader with the latest HBM chips.
One of the reasons Samsung has fallen behind is its decision to stick with chipmaking technology called nonconductive film (NCF), which causes some production issues, while Hynix switched to the mass reflow molded underfill (MR-MUF) method to address NCF's weaknesses, according to analysts and industry watchers.