Samsung
South Korean multinational conglomerate producing electronics and semiconductors.
Apple cut Mac memory ceilings and delayed M5 Ultra by four months as HBM production for data center AI consumes edge LPDDR5X allocation.
Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron converged on SOCAMM2 mass production within six weeks for NVIDIA's Vera Rubin. Korean suppliers now control both memory tiers.
HBM scarcity has moved beyond semiconductor supply into system planning. Accelerator availability, server bill-of-materials, cluster economics, and 2026 data center buildouts are all being rewritten around memory - not compute.
Samsung launched a silicon photonics foundry platform at OFC 2026, targeting 2028 PIC mass production and 2029 CPO services, pitching vertical integration of HBM, logic, packaging, and photonics against TSMC's production lead