Samsung’s HBM3E Chips Fail NVIDIA’s Heat Test, Delays Loom

Last July, mid-August, and early October, Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung successively provided NVIDIA with 8-layer vertically stacked HBM3E (24GB) samples. Among them, Micron and SK Hynix’s HBM3E passed NVIDIA’s verification early this year and received orders. However, Samsung’s HBM3E has not yet passed NVIDIA’s tests and requires further verification, reportedly due to TSMC’s approval process.

According to Reuters, Samsung’s HBM3E chips encountered significant issues during NVIDIA’s verification tests, with overheating being a major problem. It is understood that Samsung has been providing HBM3 and HBM3E to NVIDIA for verification since last year, but has yet to pass, indicating that these issues have persisted for at least six months.

Industry insiders reveal that both the 8-layer and 12-layer stacked HBM3E chips provided by Samsung have issues, leading NVIDIA to place orders only with SK Hynix or Micron for the time being. SK Hynix began supplying HBM3 to NVIDIA for the H100 as early as June 2022 and started supplying HBM3E in March 2024.

It remains unclear whether Samsung’s HBM3 and HBM3E chips suffer from production issues, packaging-related problems, or other concerns. Compared to SK Hynix and Micron, Samsung’s development timeline has been shorter, appearing somewhat rushed. Previous reports indicated slight differences in Samsung’s HBM3E manufacturing process, affected by TSMC’s standards based on SK Hynix’s testing criteria.

In response, Samsung officially stated that these issues pertain to custom products based on customer requirements and denied the overheating claims, asserting that testing is proceeding as planned.