AMD seeks 'broader partnership' with Samsung as it looks to secure memory supply

A little less than seven months since signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) concerning memory supply and collaboration in various fields with Samsung, AMD's chief executive Lisa Su is visiting South Korea to secure additional supply of HBM memory for AI accelerators, reports Chosun.biz. Meanwhile, Samsung is seeking a broader partnership and 'hopes to turn its memory supply relationship with AMD into foundry' chip production orders, the report claims.

"We are going to talk about our broader partnership," said Lisa Su when asked by reporters about what she planned to discuss with Samsung's executives. "We have many partners at Samsung."

Before visiting Samsung headquarters, Lisa Su and Jack Huynh, senior vice president and general manager of AMD's Computing and Graphics Group, attended the AMD Gamer Day event where Su and Huynh answered some questions from South Korean journalists and called local memory makers 'important strategic partners,' something that reflects the significance of data center-grade DDR5 and HBM memory for the company's AI and data center businesses.

"Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are key supply-chain partners for AMD," Su said, Chosun reports. "AI demand is extremely high, so we are planning our long-term supply chain with our partners. […] It is important to plan three to five years ahead with our partners."

The non-binding MOU that AMD and Samsung signed this March covered four areas and remained in effect for a period of three years:

• Supply of next-generation memory products, including HBM4 and advanced DDR5;
• Co-development and optimization of memory solutions for Al and high-performance computing systems;
• Exploration of foundry manufacturing opportunities for the future AMD platforms;
• Co-optimization of advanced packaging and related semiconductor technologies.

While Samsung has become a principal supplier of HBM4 for AMD's Instinct MI400-series accelerators, expansion of collaboration beyond memory supply is considerably more complicated, as it involves considerable efforts to design chips for Samsung Foundry's process technologies as well as risks associated with a product ramp at a new contract chipmaker. Truth to be told, AMD already uses Samsung Foundry and UMC to make its "ICs in the form of programmable logic devices" however, moving production of more advanced products to Samsung is risky. Meanwhile, Samsung badly needs big customers like AMD, and the latter's dependence on HBM supply certainly gives the former leverage.

"If we transition the production of some of our products to new manufacturers, we may experience delayed product introductions, lower yields or poorer performance of our products," AMD wrote in its most recent Annual Report.

AMD has already started shipments of its Instinct MI455 accelerators with 432GB of HBM4 memory onboard as well as rack-scale Helios AI systems to interested parties.

"We have started shipping our next-generation MI455 and Helios systems," Su told journalists, according to Chosun. "These are all systems that use HBM4."

So, it looks like the company is negotiating for more memory supply. The question is, will it take a risk and adopt Samsung Foundry for something more serious than niche programmable chips in a bid to get more high-bandwidth memory and sell more expensive AI accelerators? Only time will tell.