Samsung earns Nvidia certification for its HBM3 memory — stock jumps 5% as company finally catches up to SK hynix and Micron in HBM3E production

(Image credit: Samsung)

Samsung's 12-layer HBM3E chips have passed Nvidia's qualification tests for use in high-end AI accelerators. The Korean giant's stock price immediately jumped over 5% following the news, as the certification means Samsung is catching up to SK hynix and Micron, both of which were already selling HBM3E chips to Nvidia.

The welcome development comes around 18 months after HBM3E's development was complete, and after multiple certification delays. Samsung reportedly won't be selling HBM3E to Nvidia in high quantities until 2026, as current orders for the speedy chips are being fulfilled by SK hynix and Micron.

According to the report, Samsung's HBM3 memory is expected to go into Nvidia DGX B300 cards in fairly short order, as Bloomberg's industry sources expect the chips will get the final Nvidia certification quite soon. As for AMD, Samsung was already selling HBM3E chips for Instinct MI350 cards, alongside Micron. HBM3 is currently the top grade of memory chips available, comprising 12 layers, up from eight in standard HBM3. This configuration results in a meaty 1.2 TB/s per stack.

While HBM3E isn't even one year old, the AI train waits for no man. All sights are already set on HBM4, a spec that doubles the chips' bus width, resulting in approximately 2 TB/s of bandwidth per stack. It's worth noting that while the JEDEC HBM4 spec asks for 8 Gbps per pin, all three major memory makers are aiming for 10 to 11 GBps per pin on production chips, reportedly due to pressure from Nvidia. Thanks to manufacturing on 3-4 nm processes (down from 10 nm), HBM4 is predicted to offer significantly higher capacity of 64 GB per chip (up from 48 GB), along with a 20 to 30% reduction in power consumption.

Samsung has been in talks with almost every AI chip maker to get an early certification for its upcoming HBM4 wares, intending to fire up volume production as soon as the first half of 2026. This particular race is currently led by SK hynix, which signaled the completion of its HBM4 development not even two weeks ago. Judging by Samsung's stock price jump, though, it seems investors are quite confident that the Korean maker will catch up soon enough.

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Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.