Rumor: AMD has priority when purchasing HBM2 from Hynix

AMD has reportedly entered into an agreement with memory manufacturer Hynix to take precedence over the purchase of HBM2. The initial supply of the second-generation HBM would be limited and AMD would thus prevent competitors from having access to it.

The rumor comes from WccfTech, which has a mixed track record on rumours. The site claims based on unknown sources that AMD wants to get hold of as much HBM2 as possible to thwart Nvidia. Nvidia is going to use ‘3D memory’ for video cards with the Pascal GPU, which should appear in 2016.

It is unknown whether this will concern Hynix’s HBM, but so far that chip manufacturer is the only party that has announced 3D memory for video cards. AMD uses the high bandwidth memory with its Fury and Fury X cards. The advantage is that space and consumption can be saved, but the disadvantage is that the current HBM has a maximum capacity of 4GB.

That changes with HBM2, which also offers a higher bandwidth. WccfTech also claims that AMD has many more cards with the stacked memory on the schedule, including video cards for laptops.