Always Be Curious #270: Surging memory chips, humanoid olympics, and an HBM s'more
This week in ABC: Memory makers are reporting record earnings thanks to the surging memory market, humanoids compete for gold in China, and SK Hynix makes a declicious high bandwidth memory s'more
Sup Curious Clan! ✌️ Over the years, I’ve seen many food analogies for the layered nature of integrated circuitry. Most often it’s a layer cake. 🍰 Some dub it a lasagna, others baklava. But a s’more? That's a first!
The Korean memory giant SK Hynix hooked into National S’mores Day (10 August) with a tasty visual that was first posted to X with taglines like "Sweet meets smart" and "Experience the sweet sophistication of SK Hynix". 😜 It quickly blew up on socials and was picked up by tech news. Scroll down to the “This week in chips” section for the full illustration. 👇
The five steps on the visual describe the manufacturing process of its upcoming HBM4, or High Bandwidth Memory 4. This is the latest generation of high-performance DRAM memory designed for applications requiring rapid data processing, such as AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing.
Well played SK hynix, well played. 👏
Have a good week, stay safe and sound,
👨💻The round-up in sci-tech💡
🧬 Brain editing now ‘closer to reality’: the gene-altering tools tackling deadly disorders (Nature)
Stunning results in mice herald gene-editing advances for neurological diseases.
🧠 This brain implant can read out your inner monologue (Scientific American)
A new brain prosthesis can read out inner thoughts in real time, helping people with ALS and brain stem stroke communicate fast and comfortably.
🤖 Box, run, crash: China’s humanoid robot games show advances and limitations (The Guardian)
The first World Humanoid Robot Games are underway in China with participants from 16 countries including the US, Germany and Japan. Robots athletes will attempt to compete across a range of events including athletics, football, dance and martial arts.
💬 Sam Altman on ChatGPT 5 backlash and the future of OpenAI (The Verge)
The CEO of ChatGPT thinks we’re in an AI bubble.
💸 SpaceX gets billions from the government. It gives little to nothing back in taxes (The New York Times) 🎁
Elon Musk’s rocket company relies on federal contracts, but years of losses have most likely let it avoid paying federal income taxes, according to internal company documents.
❄️ Arctic glaciers face ‘terminal’ decline as microbes accelerate ice melt (The Guardian)
Scientists in Svalbard in race to study polar microbes as global heating threatens fragile glacial ecosystems
🙏 Margaret Boden, philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, dies at 88 (The New York Times) 🎁
A cognitive scientist, erudite and a trailblazer in a field dominated by men, Professor Boden produced a number of books, most notably “The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms” (1990) and “Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science” (2006). These works helped shape the philosophical conversation about human and artificial intelligence for decades. Thank you for your contributions, Professor Boden. 🙏
🤓This week in chips⚠
📈 Micron raises forecasts as AI boosts memory chip demand (Reuters)
Micron Technology on Monday raised its forecast for fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted profit, banking on surging demand for its memory chips used in artificial intelligence infrastructure, sending its shares up about 3%.
📈 SK Hynix expects AI memory market to grow 30% a year to 2030 (Reuters)
South Korea's SK Hynix forecasts that the market for a specialized form of memory chip designed for artificial intelligence will grow 30% a year until 2030, a senior executive said in an interview with Reuters.
🍪 SK hynix wants you to buy s’more HBM4 to satisfy your high-tech cravings — company's X account compares cutting-edge stacked memory to summer treat (Tom’s Hardware)
A semiconductor-based recipe makes this layered treat even worse for your teeth than usual.
📈 Scaling the memory sall: the rise and roadmap of HBM (SemiAnalysis)
SemiAnalysis takes a deep dive into HBM. The first portion of this report explains HBM, the manufacturing process, dynamics between vendors, KVCache offload, disaggregated prefill decode, and wide / high-rank EP.
“Priced lower than imported machines, Xizhi can pattern circuit lines as narrow as 8 nanometres, with a positioning accuracy of 0.6 nanometres – matching international standards.” 👇
🇨🇳 China debuts first e-beam lithography tool for commercial use in chip milestone (South China Morning Post)
Beijing’s efforts to build its own chipmaking tools may be paying off as global competition in the sector heats up.
💸 Why Trump flip-flopped on Nvidia selling H20 chips to China (WIRED)
Nvidia struck a surprising deal after convincing the president that H20 chips aren’t a national security risk. But whether the reversal is good or bad depends on who you ask.
💲 Trump Administration said to discuss taking stake in Intel (Bloomberg)
The Trump administration is in talks with Intel Corp. to have the US government take a stake in the beleaguered chipmaker, according to people familiar with the plan, in the latest sign of the White House’s willingness to blur the lines between state and industry.
🤴 Trump has made himself Commander in Chief of the chip industry (The New York Times) 🎁
President Trump has become the semiconductor sector’s leading decision maker, from new fees on exports to China to a brief demand for a C.E.O.’s firing.
🦾 Physical AI chip sales won’t rival GenAI anytime soon (Semiconductor Engineering)
Robot exuberance is premature. Application-specific machines are the near future, with humanoids after 2035.
📈By the numbers📉
📊 Micron reports Q2 2025 financial results (Micron)
“Micron delivered fiscal Q2 EPS above guidance and data center revenue tripled from a year ago,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, Chairman, President and CEO of Micron Technology. “We are extending our technology leadership with the launch of our 1-gamma DRAM node. We expect record quarterly revenue in fiscal Q3, with DRAM and NAND demand growth in both data center and consumer-oriented markets, and we are on track for record revenue and significantly improved profitability in fiscal 2025.”
📊 Applied Materials announces Q3 2025 results (Applied Materials)
“Applied Materials delivered record performance in our third fiscal quarter, and we are on track to deliver our sixth consecutive year of revenue growth in fiscal 2025,” said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO. “We are currently operating in a dynamic macroeconomic and policy environment, which is creating increased uncertainty and lower visibility in the near term, including for our China business. Despite this, we remain very confident in the longer-term growth opportunities for the semiconductor industry and Applied Materials.”
❤️For the love of tech❤️
🧠 A mind-reading brain implant that comes with password protection (Nature)
A brain–computer interface decodes in near-real time the imagined speech of people who have difficulty enunciating words.
Always Be Curious is the personal newsletter of Sander Hofman, Senior Creative Content Strategist at ASML. Opinions expressed in this curated newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.