TAIPEI - SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chip maker, will start mass production of HBM3E 12-layer chips by the end of this month, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

Justin Kim, president and head of the company's AI Infra division, made the comment at the Semicon Taiwan industry forum in Taipei.

In July, the South Korean company disclosed plans to ship the next versions of HBM chips - the 12-layer HBM3E - starting in the fourth quarter and the HBM4 starting in the second half of 2025.

High bandwidth memory (HBM) is a type of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, standard first produced in 2013 in which chips are vertically stacked to save space and reduce power consumption. They are advanced memory chips capable of handling generative artificial intelligence (AI) work.

A key component of graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI, it helps process massive amounts of data produced by complex applications.

In May, SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said its HBM chips were sold out for this year and almost sold out for 2025.

There are only three main manufacturers of HBM - SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung Electronics.

SK Hynix has been the main supplier of HBM chips to Nvidia and supplied HBM3E chips in late March to a customer it declined to identify.

  - Reuters