SK Hynix "We Will Become a Key Player in Overcoming Challenges of the AI Era"

President Kim Juseon Delivers Keynote at 'Semicon Taiwan'
"Collaborating with Partners for AI Technology Advancement"

Kim Juseon, Head of AI Infrastructure at SK Hynix, stated in his keynote speech at 'Semicon Taiwan,' the largest semiconductor industry exhibition in Taiwan that opened on the 4th, "To advance AI to the level of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), challenges related to power, heat dissipation, and memory bandwidth must be resolved," adding, "We will do our best to become a key player in the one-team effort to overcome the challenges of the AI era."

Kim Juseon, Head of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Infrastructure at SK Hynix, is delivering the keynote speech at 'SEMICON Taiwan,' Taiwan's largest semiconductor industry exhibition, which opened on the 4th. Photo by SK Hynix [Image source=Yonhap News]

Kim said, "One of the major issues is power," diagnosing that "by 2028, data centers are estimated to consume at least twice the power they currently use, and new forms of energy such as small modular nuclear reactors may be necessary to ensure sufficient power supply." As more power is used in data centers, the heat generated proportionally increases, so effective solutions to the heat problem must be found for the continuous advancement of AI technology.

Kim explained, "To address this, SK Hynix is attempting to develop high-efficiency AI memory that minimizes power consumption and reduces heat generation even with high capacity and high performance, in collaboration with partners."

With the increasing demand for ultra-high-performance memory suitable for AI implementation, the need to improve memory bandwidth is also growing. To overcome these obstacles, SK Hynix is supplying the market with the 5th generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) 3E, 256GB DIMMs for servers based on Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology, high-capacity QLC-based eSSD, and LPDDR5T. SK Hynix began supplying the industry’s first 8-stack HBM3E products to NVIDIA earlier this year and plans to start mass production of 12-stack HBM3E products from the end of this month.

Kim stated, "Product and technology development for the future is also progressing smoothly," and explained, "We are developing the 6th generation HBM4 to be supplied on time according to customer demands." He added, "HBM4, which applies logic technology to the base die for the first time, will be produced in collaboration with TSMC and will deliver top performance," and revealed, "Next-generation memory products such as LPCAMM, CXL, and 512GB high-capacity DIMMs are also being steadily prepared."

The industry’s highest-performance GDDR7, supporting up to 40Gbps, is in the final stages of mass production preparation, and innovative LPDDR6 with advanced bandwidth and power efficiency is also under development. Kim also conveyed that cutting-edge products continue to be developed in the NAND sector. He said, "In addition to R&D investment for product and technology development, infrastructure investment will proceed as planned," adding, "We are building state-of-the-art production facilities in the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, where site development is progressing smoothly, and will closely collaborate with global partners based on this."

He continued, "We plan to construct advanced packaging factories and R&D facilities in Indiana, USA, targeting mass production by 2028," and added, "This will help strengthen cooperation with key customers and partners."