Chinese company announces trial production of HBM2, while HBM3E is here, and HBM4 is close

Chinese memory manufacturer Tongfu has announced it has started trial production of its HBM2 process, and could have the memory chips inside of Huawei AI GPUs in the near future.

2

In a new report from Nikkei, we're learning that Tongfu Microelectronics has started HBM2 trial production, which is a game-changer for the domestic industry in China. Tongfu isn't the only one kicking off HBM production, with CXMT and Wuhan Xinxin both making significant progress in DRAM and HBM memory over the last few months.

AMD is a partner of Tongfu and a shareholder, making it famous in the industry, and you wouldn't know it... but Tongfu Microelectronics is the world's third-largest semiconductor packaging and test service provider, but the adventures into HBM memory is new for the Chinese company.

Tongfu is reportedly a supplier of Huawei and its AI chips, but we don't know if we'll see Tongfu's new HBM2 memory inside of Huawei AI chips anytime soon. HBM2 is multiple generations behind of the rest of the semiconductor industry, with HBM2E, HBM3, and HBM3E already on the market and powering AI chips from AMD and NVIDIA.

• Read more: China is at least 10 years behind Taiwan in advanced semiconductor manufacturing
• Read more: China imports record-high $26B of semiconductor equipment to make chips in 2024

Meanwhile, HBM4 is around the corner and will make an appearance inside of NVIDIA's next-gen Rubin R100 AI GPU which we should get a glance at in a couple of months at NVIDIA's upcoming GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in March 2025.