[Edaily Reporter SOYEON KIM ] As competition in the artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market intensifies, technological collaboration among companies is becoming even closer. Beyond joint development between memory manufacturers and their customers, collaboration is diversifying to include equity investments among semiconductor equipment manufacturers and joint investments in packaging substrate production facilities. This shift stems from the assessment that, as the importance of next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and advanced packaging grows, competitive advantage will be determined not by the technological capabilities of individual companies but by the collaborative capacity of the entire supply chain.

According to industry sources on the 27th, U.S. semiconductor equipment manufacturer Applied Materials has decided to increase its stake in Dutch packaging equipment company BESI from the current 9% to approximately 20%. This reflects strengthening collaboration among equipment manufacturers to secure core technologies in step with the push for higher performance in AI semiconductors.

This increase in stake is an example of technological collaboration leading to capital investment. The two companies have been jointly developing hybrid bonding technology since 2020, and earlier this month, they expanded the scope of their collaboration to include next-generation 3D semiconductor integration and the integration of memory and logic semiconductors.

Hybrid bonding is an advanced packaging technology that directly connects semiconductor chips with microscopic gaps to increase data processing speed and power efficiency.

The “Big Three” memory companies—SamsungElectronics, SK hynix, and Micron—are collaborating with NVIDIA to develop “NVHBM,” a customized version of HBM4E. NVHBM is slated for use in NVIDIA’s next-generation graphics processing units (GPUs) and the NVLink Fusion Platform, among other applications.

When NVIDIA unveiled NVHBM last August, the company explained that it can increase memory bandwidth by up to 30% and reduce power consumption by 15% compared to standard HBM4E. This approach involves collaborating with memory manufacturers from the early stages of AI chip design to optimize performance.

NVIDIA is also proceeding with a joint investment in package substrates. On the 21st, SamsungElectroMechanics and NVIDIA announced a joint investment in dedicated production facilities in Sejong and Busan for AI semiconductor package substrates, along with a multi-year supply agreement. This represents a direct investment by NVIDIA to expand SamsungElectroMechanics’ production capacity, ensuring a stable supply of semiconductor package substrates.

These moves come as the competition for AI semiconductor performance has expanded beyond chip design and manufacturing to encompass the entire supply chain, including memory, packaging, and substrates. As factors such as memory bandwidth, inter-chip connectivity, and thermal management have become just as critical as computational performance, there is a growing need for related companies to jointly optimize their technologies from the earliest stages of development.

The semiconductor industry’s collaborative R&D framework is also evolving. Applied Materials invested approximately $5 billion (about 6.6 trillion won) to establish the EPIC Center, a semiconductor R&D facility, in Silicon Valley, USA. Whereas the previous approach involved developing semiconductor materials, manufacturing equipment, and process technologies separately before integrating them, at the EPIC Center, semiconductor manufacturers and equipment vendors participate in joint research from the earliest stages of development.

Major semiconductor companies such as SamsungElectronics, SK hynix, TSMC, Intel, and Micron are participating in the EPIC Center. Each company contributes its own technology development projects and engineers to collaborate on the development of next-generation processes and manufacturing equipment.

An industry official stated, “While memory manufacturers’ independent technology development remains important, collaboration with customers and equipment suppliers is having a significant impact on product performance,” adding, “Going forward, cooperation will expand beyond joint semiconductor development to include investment in production facilities and the establishment of long-term supply chains.”