The advances come after months of stumbles, including development missteps that allowed the smaller SK Hynix to jump out to a huge lead in the fast-growing sector. It is unusual — and humbling — for South Korea’s largest company to be playing this kind of catchup. Historically, Samsung has led the way in the memory chip market, capitalising on its scale and engineering expertise. As the company struggled in the HBM field, it took the highly unusual step of replacing the head of its semiconductor division in May.
Samsung Electronics Co, after a series of setbacks in developing the type of memory chips crucial for the artificial intelligence market, is beginning to make progress in narrowing the gap with rival SK Hynix Inc.
Samsung has made important headway in its comeback, including winning the long-awaited approval from AI giant Nvidia Corp for a version of its high-bandwidth memory chips called HBM3, according to people familiar with the matter. It also anticipates approval for the next generation, HBM3E, in two to four months, said the people, who asked not to be identified for discussing internal developments.
