Japan’s Softbank will join hands with U.S. Intel to develop a new memory semiconductor that will be used for artificial intelligence (AI).
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on the 1st that the two companies are pushing to develop a new large-capacity memory that reduces power consumption by half compared to high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is essential for AI devices.
The University of Tokyo, Japan’s most prestigious university, will also participate in the project. Several companies and organizations are reportedly considering investment and technological cooperation, including the National Research and Development Corp. (Riken) and Shinko Electric Industries, a semiconductor package substrate maker.
To develop new semiconductors, Softbank and other companies have recently established a company called Cy Memory. The company plans to use Intel’s technology and patents held by Tokyo University to make prototypes over the next two years before determining the possibility of mass production.
CyMemory is in charge of IP management and chip design while serving as the head coach of development projects, and outsourced production to external companies. CyMemory plans to reduce power consumption compared to HBM by changing the structure of wiring between memory devices when stacking memory DRAMs on a substrate. Softbank will decide to invest 3 billion yen in Cy Memory and become the largest investor. Softbank is also considering requesting funding from the Japanese government.
The new memory to be developed by Cy Memory will be used in data centers that will be used as bases for AI learning. The new memory is more competitive than the current HBM in terms of power consumption and price, so it will be able to operate AI data centers at high quality and low cost.
Although HBM has excellent data storage capacity and transmission speed, it is evaluated that it has limitations in cost and power consumption. Recently, supply has not been smooth as demand has soared. In the case of SK Hynix, the No. 1 HBM company, all supplies for the next two years have been sold out.
According to BCG, an American consulting firm, AI-related server shipments will increase sixfold between 2023 and 2027, and DRAM shipments will also increase 21% annually. The use of HBM will continue to increase.
Japan’s Softbank and others are actively seeking to develop new memory devices due to the difficult semiconductor environment in Japan. In the 1980s, Japan accounted for more than 70 percent of the global DRAM market. However, since the 1990s, most of them have been withdrawn from the market due to Korea and Taiwan.
Companies that produce DRAM in Japan have disappeared, and Kioxia, which is separated from Toshiba, only produces NAND flash memories. Accordingly, the Japanese government plans to invest more than 10 trillion yen in the semiconductor and AI sectors by 2030 to actively foster the semiconductor industry in Japan.
EJ SONG
US ASIA JOURNAL
