Charles Liang, President and CEO of AI server giant Supermicro, delivered a keynote speech at COMPUTEX earlier today. According to a report from CNA, while expressing his optimism in expanding the company’s market share in the Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) field, Liang targets to capture a 15% market share in the new data center market by next year.

According to the report, Liang mentioned that Supermicro’s DLC solutions had a market share of less than 1% over the past 30 years. However, as DLC solutions now have a cost comparable to air-cooled solutions, yet more energy-efficient, more manufacturers are beginning to adopt them. It is estimated that Supermicro has around 1000 liquid-cooled cabinets shipped each month, and the aim is to capture 15% of the new data center market share within next year.

Supermicro offers comprehensive solutions at both the cabinet and data center levels. Its operations have expanded globally from the headquarter in San Jose, California, to manufacturing and operation centers in Asia and Europe. Liang stated that Supermicro’s Malaysian plant is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of this year, with a monthly production capacity of up to 5000 cabinets, according to CNA’s report today.

Regarding Supermicro’s expansion plans, Liang said earlier that Supermicro, with over 4000 employees worldwide, its top priority would be expanding in Taiwan, aiming to finalize plans for a new campus in the near future.

In addition, Liang pointed out that AI is rapidly and significantly changing the world. Through its collaboration with GPU giant NVIDIA, Supermicro has become one of the leading suppliers of AI systems. He also emphasized that by adopting more energy-efficient systems, green computing can be cost-free and offer significant bonuses, according to the report.

While reiterating Supermicro’s strong bond with NVIDIA, Liang invited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to join him on stage. When Liang introduced the liquid-cooled server cabinets on stage, Huang praised the liquid cooling solution for significantly reducing data center costs.

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• [COMPUTEX 2024] The Rise of Generative AI Sparks Innovation across Industries, with Taiwan-based Companies Leading as Essential Partners in the Global Supply Chain

(Photo credit: Supermicro)

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang revealed that Samsung’s High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is still striving on the certification process, but is one step away from beginning supply.

According to a report from Bloomberg on June 4th, Huang, during a briefing at the COMPUTEX, told reporters that NVIDIA is evaluating HBM provided by both Samsung and Micron Technology. Huang mentioned that there is still some engineering work needed to be completed, expressing the desire for it to have been finished already.

As per Huang, though Samsung hasn’t failed any qualification tests, its HBM product required additional engineering work. When asked about Reuter’s previous report concerning overheating and power consumption issues with Samsung’s HBM, Huang simply remarked, “there’s no story there.”

Previously, Reuters cited sources on May 24th, reporting that overheating and power consumption issues would affect Samsung’s fourth-generation HBM chip, “HBM3,” as well as the fifth-generation “HBM3e” planned for release by Samsung and its competitors this year.

Per the same report from Reuters, Samsung has been attempting to pass NVIDIA’s tests for HBM3 and HBM3e since last year, while a test for Samsung’s 8-layer and 12-layer HBM3e chips was said to fail in April.

In an official statement, Samsung noted that it is in the process of optimizing products through close collaboration with customers, with testing proceeding smoothly and as planned. The company said that HBM is a customized memory product, which requires optimization processes in tandem with customers’ needs.

Currently, SK Hynix is the primary supplier of NVIDIA’s HBM3 and HBM3e. According to an earlier TrendForce’s analysis, NVIDIA’s upcoming B100 or H200 models will incorporate advanced HBM3e, while the current HBM3 supply for NVIDIA’s H100 solution is primarily met by SK Hynix.

According to a report from the Financial Times in May, SK hynix has successfully reduced the time needed for mass production of HBM3e chips by 50%, while close to achieving the target yield of 80%.

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• [News] Reasons for Samsung’s HBM Chips Failing Nvidia Tests Revealed, Reportedly Due to Heat and Power Consumption Issues
• [News] Samsung Reportedly Establishes New HBM Team, Looking to Improve AI Chip Yield

(Photo credit: Samsung)

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger gave a keynote speech at the 2024 COMPUTEX TAIPEI yesterday. According to a report from UDN, Gelsinger addressed that the U.S. must carefully find an appropriate balance in its chip ban against China to avoid pushing China to accelerate the development of its own chips. He stated that Intel’s technology holds a competitive advantage in China and will continue to export appropriate products to China.

Regarding the AI era, Gelsinger mentioned that all devices will eventually become AI devices, and all businesses will become AI businesses. He also introduced Intel’s foundry services as the first production system designed for the AI era. He stated that AI will be ubiquitous, its applications including AI PCs, end devices, enterprise products, and data centers.

At a press conference following the event, Gelsinger was asked about the development of Intel’s foundry services. He noted that everything is on track, with the goal of achieving this through a more flexible and balanced supply chain.

Regarding whether the U.S. chip export ban is prompting China to accelerate its chip development, Gelsinger said that the ban acts like a “magic line.” If the bans are too strict, it could force China to speed up the development of its own chips, so it is indeed crucial to carefully find the appropriate balance.

Per a report from tom’s hardware, Gelsinger agrees on strict restrictions on manufacturing technology, particularly emphasizing limitations on EUV lithography, which he believes will curb Chinese chipmakers’ capabilities to keep American companies competitive in China.

Notably, per Reuters citing sources, the U.S. government has reportedly revoked the licenses of Intel and Qualcomm to supply semiconductor chips used in laptops and handsets to Huawei. Some companies received notices on May 7th, and the revocation of the licenses took immediate effect.

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• [News] Intel CEO Gelsinger Unveils Lunar Lake Processors, Giving Credit to TSMC
• [News] U.S. Imposes Further Sanctions, Revoking Intel and Qualcomm’s License to Supply Chips to Huawei

(Photo credit: iStock)

Recently, Samsung Electronics announced that the development of its 8nm eMRAM has almost been completed and process upgrades is underway as planned.

According to a report from WeChat account DRAMeXchange, as a new type of non-volatile memory technology based on magnetic principles, eMRAM falls under the category of embedded MRAM (Magnetoresistive random-access memory). Compared to traditional DRAM, eMRAM offers faster access speeds and higher durability. Unlike DRAM, it does not require data refreshing, and its write rate is 1000 times that of NAND.

Due to these characteristics, the industry holds a positive outlook on the potential of eMRAM, especially in scenarios that demand high performance, energy efficiency, and durability.

Samsung Electronics is one of the main producers of eMRAM and is dedicated to promoting its adoption in the automotive sector. In 2019, Samsung developed and mass-produced the industry’s first eMRAM based on 28nm FD-SOI. After achieving the production capability of 28nm eMRAM, Samsung reportedly plans to mass-produce 14nm eMRAM in 2024, 8nm in 2026, and 5nm in 2027.

Samsung is confident about the application of eMRAM in future automotive uses, stating that its product’s temperature tolerance has reached 150-160°C, which can fully meet the stringent requirements of the automotive industry for semiconductors.

In recent years, the proliferation of big data and artificial intelligence applications has generated massive memory demands and placed higher requirements for memory technologies. Against this backdrop, new memory technologies have continuously emerged, among which SCM (Storage Class Memory) is a representative, which combines high-speed read and write performance of DRAM with the persistent storage capability of NAND flash, potentially addressing issues of small capacity, volatility, and high cost associated with DRAM. Key SCM products include phase-change memory (PCM), resistive RAM (ReRAM), magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM), and nanotube RAM (NRAM).

Aside from Samsung, companies like Kioxia and ByteDance have also acted vigorously in the new memory field this year. In April, Kioxia’s CTO Hidefumi Miyajima stated that compared to competitors developing both NAND and DRAM, Kioxia is at a competitive disadvantage in terms of business diversity, making the cultivation of new memory product business like SCM a necessity. With this goal in mind, Kioxia reorganized its “Memory Technology Research Laboratory” into the “Advanced Technology Research Laboratory.”

In March, it was reported by South China Morning Post that ByteDance invested in a Chinese memory company Innostar, becoming its third-largest shareholder. Innostar focuses on the R&D of new memory technologies like ReRAM and related chip products covering three categories: high-performance industrial control/automotive-grade SoC/ASIC chip, computing-in-memory (CIM) IP, chip and system-on-memory (SoM) chip.

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• [News] Intel’s Lunar Lake Bundled Memory Reportedly Causes Uproar in the PC Supply Chain
• [News] Battle in AI PCs: Exploring Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm Chips’ AI Computing Power

(Photo credit: Samsung)

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger delivered a keynote speech at COMPUTEX Taipei earlier today, unveiling the next-generation client architecture set to launch this year. According to a report from CNA, He expressed gratitude to TSMC for collaborating on the development of the Lunar Lake processors, intended for the next generation of AI PCs. Currently, there are over 80 designs from 20 manufacturers.

Previously on the IFS Direct Connect event in San Jose, USA, Gelsinger pointed out in an interview that two generations of CPU Tiles would be manufactured using TSMC’s N3B process,  marking the official arrival of Intel CPU orders for laptop platforms.

Gelsinger’s interview confirms that Intel has indeed expanded its outsourcing orders to TSMC. Currently, TSMC is responsible for producing Intel CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs tiles for the Arrow and Lunar Lake platforms.

As per CNA’s report, Gelsinger announced the launch of the Xeon 6 platform and processor family designed to meet the demands of data centers, as well as the Gaudi AI accelerator. He also unveiled details of the Lunar Lake processor architecture.

As the flagship processor for the next generation of AI PCs, Lunar Lake significantly enhances graphics and AI processing, reducing system-on-chip power consumption by 40% and providing over three times the AI computing capability. Lunar Lake processors are expected to start shipping in the third quarter of this year.

Additionally, Intel plans to ship over 40 million Core Ultra processors this year, further solidifying its position in the AI PC field.

Gelsinger remarked that having 100,000 transistors on a chip would be remarkable in the early days, but now there are already 1 billion transistors on a chip, with the potential to reach even 1 trillion in the future.

Contrary to what NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently described in his speech, Gelsinger indicated further that Moore’s Law is alive and well, and Taiwan continues to play a core role.

According to Gelsinger, Intel has been operating in Taiwan since 1985 and will enter its 40th year of operation next year. The partnership between Intel and Taiwan spans 39 years, and the combined initials of Intel (I) and Taiwan (T) stand for information technology (IT). Together, Intel and its Taiwanese partners can change the world once again.

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• [News] Intel’s Lunar Lake Bundled Memory Reportedly Causes Uproar in the PC Supply Chain
• [News] Battle in AI PCs: Exploring Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm Chips’ AI Computing Power

(Photo credit: Intel)