Author: Sam Nussey
TOKYO: Japan’s Advantest said on Wednesday that rising demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used for artificial intelligence (AI) tasks is boosting the company’s memory testing business.
HBM, a type of high-performance memory in which chips are stacked to save space and reduce power consumption, is used when processing huge amounts of data needed for AI tasks.
“Currently, HBM represents approximately 50% of our memory testing business, and we expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future,” CEO Douglas Lefever said in an interview.
Advantest, a maker of chip testing equipment, has been working with HBM since it was first produced in 2013 and leverages its relationships with memory makers, Lefever said.
The hardware maker’s share of memory testers increased in the fiscal year ended in March, and a 47% boost in annual sales in the memory segment is forecast.
Artificial intelligence and the drive to improve chip performance are leading to increasingly complicated combinations of components that require extensive testing to validate performance.
“It’s going to push business out of the cloud and out of the data center… but what’s really going to accelerate is when edge applications come in,” said Lefever, who took the position in April.
Edge AI means executing AI tasks on local devices rather than in centralized data centers.
The electronics industry, hit by faint demand for smartphones, tablets and PCs, hopes the adoption of artificial intelligence features will encourage consumers to upgrade their devices.
“As fresh devices come out, there will be a lot of test content in them because they are more complicated,” Lefever said.
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