Samsung's New Vision: HBM Goes Beyond Memory

HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) has become a key part of the AI ecosystem, and Samsung is exploring ways for it to do more. According to tech media SammyGuru, Samsung's tech chief Han Sang-wook said at Hot Chips 2026 that since HBM's base die uses advanced logic, it might take on some SoC functions. Right now, HBM mainly provides fast data access for GPUs and other AI accelerators, but as AI models grow, there are challenges with bandwidth, capacity, energy efficiency, and package size. Samsung plans to move the memory controller from the processor to the HBM base die, freeing up space in the processor for more compute transistors. They're also working on aHBM (Advanced HBM), which would turn HBM from just fast memory into a mix of memory and computing, handling some AI tasks.