According to market reports, NVIDIA is planning to develop its own High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) Base Die design, with production targeting 3 nm process technology and trial manufacturing expected to begin in late 2027. TrendForce, citing Commercial Times, sees this as a strategic move that would allow NVIDIA to control the underlying logic components of HBM modules regardless of which memory manufacturer supplies the stacked memory layers. The news disrupted the HBM industry, where SK Hynix currently dominates. While SK Hynix uses primarily in-house Base Die solutions, it relies on advanced manufacturing processes from companies like TSMC to achieve speeds above 10 Gbps. Memory manufacturers typically lack the complex design capabilities needed for sophisticated Base Die and ASIC development.

NVIDIA's plan seems to aim at tightening its grip on its ecosystem through the NVLink Fusion platform giving customers more mix-and-match choices. However, cloud service providers might push back against NVIDIA's Base Die solutions, as many first went for ASIC development to cut their reliance on NVIDIA. At the same time, SK Hynix keeps pushing its HBM4 technology forward. The company just recently shipped 12-layer samples with 36 GB capacity and speed over 2 TB per second (60% faster than HBM3E). HBM4 is expected to deliver higher speeds and stacking with more complex packaging integration. As we previously reported, NVIDIA and AMD will deploy customized HBM4 memory in their upcoming AI accelerators. Combined with NVIDIA's plans to manufacture its own HBM Base Die and SK Hynix's accelerated HBM4 production timeline, the HBM market is about to enter a new phase of competition and change.