Amid the competition among SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics regarding HBMs, SK Hynix reportedly plans to team with Amkor to enter the interposer market to alleviate the interposer shortage and fend off challenges from Samsung Electronics in the HBM market.
According to South Korean media Money Today, SK Hynix is reportedly partnering with US-based Amkor Technology to supply interposers, a key technology for 2.5D packaging essential process for manufacturing AI accelerators such as Nvidia's H100. The report noted the talk is in the initial stages.
SK Hynix plans to send its HBM and interposers to Amkor for the latter to assemble with GPUs to produce AI accelerators. Besides alleviating the interposer shortage that restricts the current AI chip market, SK Hynix's rumored move in the interposer market may aim to fend off rising challenges from Samsung Electronics, which offers I-Cube 2.5D packaging technology.
According to a TheElec report in April, a Samsung team focused on advanced packaging may provide packaging for Nvidia's AI chips using Samsung's interposer and I-Cube technology, which could lead to Samsung supplying the HBMs for these AI processors under a turnkey solution in the future. Currently, Samsung has yet to win orders from Nvidia for its HBMs.
