Understanding Micron's HBM (High Bandwidth Memory)

Micron announced the shipment of HBM4 samples to their key customers, marking a major step in high-performance memory for AI workloads. But how are they different from the normal Crucial memories Micron used to make for every day consumers and why should we care ?

The differences are as follows:

1) HBM memories are faster with data transfer speed of over 4TB/s (4 Terra Bytes per second) while the latest DDR5 commercial memories have the maximum of around 64 GB/s (64 Giga bytes per second) 

2) HBM memories are 3D- stacked layers with TSVs (Through Silicon Vias) which are vertical connections drilled through the silicon chips that allow data to pass directly through the stack for low latency, high speed communication between the layers. While the normal commercial memories have a single silicon chip slab connected to the motherboard for communication and is much slower than HBM memories.

Diagram below for illustration:

3) HBMs consume significantly less energy per bit (data) transferred than the consumer grade memories.

4) HBMs are connected closer to the CPU to reduce latency further unlike the traditional consumer memory which is further away from the CPU.

AI Accelerator Vendors: NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and emerging AI chipmakers use HBM in GPUs and AI-specific ASICs.

Cloud Providers & Hyperscalers: AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure integrate HBM-powered chips for AI training/inference clusters.

High-Performance Computing (HPC): Scientific research, simulations, and supercomputers rely on HBM for extreme throughput.

Networking & Telecom: Advanced routers and 5G infrastructure sometimes use HBM for packet processing at scale.

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