Reports
AI-generated structured vendor updates
NVIDIA Denies Kyber NVL144 Delay, But 78-Layer PCB Bottleneck Exposes AI Hardware Physics Limit
NVIDIA officially denies reports of Kyber NVL144 rack delay to 2028, but SemiAnalysis revelations about a 78-layer ultra-high-density PCB midplane bottleneck and Rubin Ultra cancellation expose hard physical limits in signal integrity and manufacturing, opening a strategic window for AMD and Google.
NVIDIA Kyber NVL144 Delayed to 2028: Midplane PCB Manufacturing Becomes AI Scaling Bottleneck
SemiAnalysis reveals NVIDIA's Kyber NVL144 delayed beyond 12 months to 2028 due to 78-layer Orthogonal Backplane manufacturing challenges. The interim NVL72x2 solution is cancelled due to operational burdens, and the 4-die Rubin Ultra is also scrapped, leaving a product gap in NVIDIA's scaling roadmap.
Samsung and SK Hynix Announce $300B Investment to Dominate AI Memory and Foundry
Samsung and SK Hynix announce a 10-year, 1,000 trillion won investment plan to expand HBM4 production, improve 3nm GAA yield, and build new AI chip fabs. This aims to cement their HBM duopoly and close the gap with TSMC in advanced foundry, reshaping global AI infrastructure supply chain costs.
ASUS Launches NVIDIA GB300 Deskside AI Supercomputer, Shifting Control from Cloud to On-Prem
ASUS launches the ExpertCenter Pro ET900N G3, powered by NVIDIA's GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, delivering 20 PFLOPS and 748GB of coherent memory for near-trillion parameter models. Concurrently, Coherent expands InP fab in Texas for optical interconnects, and NVIDIA plans a $20-25B debt offering, signaling a systemic shift of AI control from cloud to localized enterprise hardware.
NVIDIA & Coherent Expand 6-Inch InP Fab, Locking AI Optical Interconnect Supply Chain
Coherent breaks ground on the world's first 6-inch indium phosphide fab in Texas, backed by $2B from NVIDIA and multi-billion purchase commitments. The facility produces lasers, transceivers, and pluggable optics for silicon photonics interconnects, enabling NVIDIA's Vera Rubin Ultra NVL576 576-GPU clusters and signaling a mass shift from copper to optical backbones in AI data centers.
NVIDIA and Coherent Scale 6-Inch InP Fab, Optical Interconnect Becomes AI Infrastructure's New Bottleneck Breaker
NVIDIA invests $2B and commits multi-billion purchases to Coherent's expanded 6-inch indium phosphide fab in Texas, scaling production of lasers and optical modules for AI interconnects. This addresses copper's distance and power limitations in large GPU clusters (e.g., Vera Rubin Ultra NVL576), pushing co-packaged optics into volume manufacturing.
HBM Profitability Falls Below DDR5, TrendForce Warns of Multi-Fold Price Surge in 2027
TrendForce reports that HBM per-wafer revenue fell below DDR5 64GB RDIMM in Q1 2026, making HBM less profitable. Suppliers will reallocate capacity, leading to multi-fold HBM4 contract price increases in 2027. Demand from NVIDIA Rubin Ultra and AI ASICs will further tighten supply.
SK Hynix Jumps to TSMC 3nm for HBM4E Logic Die to Counter Samsung's 4nm Lead
SK Hynix plans to use TSMC's 3nm process for the logic die in its 7th-gen HBM4E, a leap from the 12nm used in HBM4. This aims to reverse the performance gap with Samsung (which used 4nm logic in HBM4) and deliver higher bandwidth and power efficiency for next-gen AI chips like NVIDIA's Vera Rubin Ultra.
SK Hynix HBM4E Samples: 3nm Logic, 384GB/GPU, Igniting AI Memory Bandwidth Arms Race
SK Hynix has sampled its 12-layer HBM4E, featuring TSMC 3nm logic die and enhanced per-pin bandwidth, targeting Nvidia Rubin Ultra with 384GB per GPU. This marks the start of a sprint with Samsung in next-gen AI memory, where HBM BOM share has surged to 65-70%.