HBM memory stocks: who actually makes high bandwidth memory
High bandwidth memory, or HBM, is DRAM stacked vertically and wired directly into an AI accelerator package. An Nvidia or AMD training chip is useless without it: the processor can only compute as fast as memory can feed it, which is why HBM has become the scarcest part of an AI server and the reason memory makers now capture a share of AI spending that looked impossible three years ago.
Only three companies in the world manufacture it at scale: SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron. Two of the three are buyable on a US exchange. That extreme concentration is the single most important fact about this sector, and it is why the supporting cast, the packaging houses, the test and bonding equipment makers and the interface silicon vendors, matter more here than in a normal semiconductor group.
Updated · newest price in the table below
How the group traded
Unweighted average of the 14 constituents that had a live quote in the most recent session. This is a read on how the group traded, not an index and not a tracked return series.
The companies
The makers
The only two HBM manufacturers a US brokerage account can buy. Everything else on this page is upstream or downstream of these two.
| Ticker | Company | Exposure | Why it is here | Price | Day | Market cap | Next earnings | Our coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SKHY | SK hynix Inc. SKHY is the US ADR, listed regular-way on 13 July 2026. Ten ADSs equal one Seoul-listed ordinary share, and the ADR has traded at a shifting premium to Seoul since listing, which is a second exposure on top of the company itself. Any company results described on this page belong to the Seoul-listed parent, not to the ADR. | Direct | The HBM leader and the most HBM-weighted of the three makers, which cuts both ways: it captures the most of an HBM upcycle and the least of a conventional DRAM price spike. | $163.41 | +0.20% | $1.16T | Oct 27, 2026 | 94 |
| MU | Micron Technology, Inc. | Direct | The only US-domiciled HBM maker, and the most exposed of the three to conventional DRAM and NAND pricing alongside its HBM ramp. | $966.78 | -0.77% | - | Sep 23, 2026 | 112 |
Packaging and assembly
An HBM stack is worthless until it is bonded into a package next to a processor. Packaging capacity, not wafer capacity, has repeatedly been the binding constraint on AI accelerator supply.
| Ticker | Company | Exposure | Why it is here | Price | Day | Market cap | Next earnings | Our coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSM | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufactur | Significant | Runs the advanced packaging capacity most AI accelerators are assembled in, which is where HBM stacks and logic die are joined. The bottleneck the whole industry watches. | $418.95 | +0.71% | $2.17T | Oct 15, 2026 | 28 |
| AMKR | Amkor Technology, Inc. | Significant | The largest US-listed outsourced assembly and test provider, and a direct beneficiary when packaging demand exceeds what the foundries will do in house. | $50.26 | -1.18% | $12.5B | Oct 26, 2026 | 4 |
Equipment and test
Stacking a dozen DRAM die and getting every connection right is a manufacturing problem before it is a design problem. These companies sell the tools that make and verify the stack.
| Ticker | Company | Exposure | Why it is here | Price | Day | Market cap | Next earnings | Our coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KLIC | Kulicke and Soffa Industries, I | Significant | Sells thermocompression bonding systems, the specific tool used to bond stacked HBM die. One of the purest equipment plays on HBM stacking there is. | $85.75 | +0.73% | $4.5B | - | 4 |
| CAMT | Camtek Ltd. | Significant | Inspection and metrology aimed at advanced packaging. More stacked die per package means more inspection steps per finished unit. | $146.81 | -1.14% | $6.9B | Nov 16, 2026 | 7 |
| AEHR | Aehr Test Systems | Significant | Burn-in and test systems. A stack that fails after assembly wastes every die in it, so test economics matter more as stack height grows. | $101.73 | -4.00% | $3.3B | Oct 8, 2026 | 8 |
| TER | Teradyne, Inc. | Indirect | Automated test equipment across semiconductors broadly, with memory and advanced packaging test as a named growth area rather than the whole business. | $375.74 | -1.93% | $58.7B | Oct 21, 2026 | 5 |
| AMAT | Applied Materials, Inc. | Indirect | Deposition and etch across the industry. Real HBM and packaging exposure inside a much larger diversified equipment business. | $492.32 | -0.78% | $390.9B | Nov 12, 2026 | 12 |
| LRCX | Lam Research Corporation | Indirect | Etch and deposition with specific through-silicon via processes used in stacked memory, inside a broad wafer fab equipment business. | $314.00 | +1.12% | $392.9B | Oct 21, 2026 | 11 |
| KLAC | KLA Corporation | Indirect | Process control and inspection across the industry, with packaging inspection growing as stacks get taller. | $183.99 | -1.01% | $240.4B | Oct 28, 2026 | 7 |
Interface and connectivity silicon
Memory bandwidth is only useful if data can get in and out of the accelerator. These companies sell the connectivity layer around HBM-equipped systems.
| Ticker | Company | Exposure | Why it is here | Price | Day | Market cap | Next earnings | Our coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MRVL | Marvell Technology, Inc. | Significant | Custom accelerator silicon and the high-speed interconnect around it, sold to the hyperscalers building HBM-equipped chips of their own. | $237.04 | -5.57% | $212.8B | Aug 27, 2026 | 21 |
| ALAB | Astera Labs, Inc. | Significant | Connectivity silicon for AI racks, sitting between accelerators, memory and the rest of the system. | $284.97 | -1.91% | $49.4B | Nov 3, 2026 | 8 |
| CRDO | Credo Technology Group Holding | Significant | High-speed serial connectivity for AI data centers, which scales with the number of accelerator nodes rather than with HBM directly. | $230.57 | -0.34% | $43.0B | Sep 1, 2026 | 8 |
Exposure grades are our own judgment, defined in the methodology below. Market cap is unavailable from our quote source for a small number of symbols and is left blank rather than estimated. “Our coverage” is the number of articles we have published on that company.
Who leads
Three companies make HBM. They are not equally exposed to it, not equally buyable, and the differences matter more than the market shares.
| Company | How to buy it | Position in the market |
|---|---|---|
| SK Hynix | US ADR (SKHY) and Seoul 000660 | The HBM leader, and the most HBM-weighted of the three. Has said its long-term agreements cover roughly half of revenue and run three to five years, which is why a commodity price spike passes it by. |
| Samsung Electronics | Seoul only, no US listing | The largest memory manufacturer overall and the third HBM supplier. Not investable through a normal US brokerage account, which is why it is absent from the table above despite being central to the market. |
| Micron | US (MU) | The only US-domiciled maker. Carries more conventional DRAM and NAND exposure alongside HBM, so it participates more in commodity memory pricing in both directions. |
What drives this group
The variables that decide whether these companies have a good year. Mechanisms rather than forecasts.
1. Which generation qualifies first
HBM sells in generations, currently the move from HBM3E to HBM4. Accelerator makers qualify a supplier's part before buying it in volume, and the first to qualify captures the premium tier.
Why it matters: Qualification timing, not manufacturing capability, decides who gets the profitable share of a generation. A qualification that slips a quarter shows up directly as a revenue miss.
2. Long-term agreements versus spot pricing
HBM is increasingly sold under multi-year long-term agreements with agreed price bands, rather than at floating commodity prices like conventional DRAM.
Why it matters: This is the single most misread thing about the sector. A spike in commodity DRAM prices does not flow through to the most HBM-weighted maker, because much of its volume is already priced under contract. The same spike flows straight through to a maker with more conventional DRAM exposure. Two memory companies can report opposite quarters off identical industry conditions.
3. Advanced packaging capacity
Finished HBM stacks still need packaging slots next to a processor die, and that capacity is added slowly and booked far in advance.
Why it matters: The constraint on AI accelerator supply keeps migrating between memory and packaging. When packaging is the bottleneck, additional HBM capacity does not increase shipped systems, and the value shifts to the packaging and bonding names.
4. Customer concentration
A small number of accelerator buyers account for the large majority of HBM demand, with Nvidia the swing buyer.
Why it matters: One qualification decision or one order change at a single customer can move a maker's entire year. It also means HBM demand is a derivative of AI capital spending, so any slowdown in accelerator orders reaches memory with a lag rather than being absorbed.
5. Chinese supply at the commodity end
Chinese DRAM manufacturers are scaling conventional memory, well behind on HBM but relevant at the commodity end of the market.
Why it matters: Conventional DRAM profits fund HBM capital spending at the incumbents. Pressure on commodity pricing squeezes the cash flow paying for the next HBM node, which is how a low-end competitor affects a high-end product it cannot yet build.
Recent SEC filings
| Filed | Ticker | Form | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 21, 2026 | MU | 144 | MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC |
| Aug 21, 2026 | CRDO | 4 | Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd — FORM 4 |
| Aug 21, 2026 | SKHY | 6-K | SK hynix Inc. — FORM 6-K |
| Aug 21, 2026 | SKHY | 6-K | SK hynix Inc. — FORM 6-K |
| Aug 20, 2026 | TSM | 4 | TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO LTD — FORM 4 |
| Aug 20, 2026 | MU | 4 | MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC — PRIMARY DOCUMENT |
| Aug 20, 2026 | AMAT | 10-Q | APPLIED MATERIALS INC /DE — 10-Q |
Our recent coverage
- Korean investors poured $85.6M into Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) in one week. The fund already holds Samsung and SK Hynix. Aug 21, 2026
- Memory chip prices are soaring. So why are Micron (MU), SanDisk (SNDK) and SK Hynix (SKHY) falling? Aug 21, 2026
- Kospi rebounds 5.89% after worst day in weeks as SK Hynix announces $28.6 billion buyback Aug 20, 2026
- SK Hynix’s (SKHY) HBM4 may cost Nvidia (NVDA) nearly twice as much as HBM3E. Samsung wants the same deal. Aug 18, 2026
- Leopold Aschenbrenner's latest filing shows he closed 13 of his 16 options positions and moved more than half his fund into SanDisk and Micron Aug 18, 2026
- Samsung could return $141 billion a year to shareholders as SK Hynix weighs $70 billion payout Aug 16, 2026
- Memory is the bottleneck for AI, and the shortage is real Aug 14, 2026
- SK Square rose 9% on Wednesday, more than SK Hynix itself. The difference is a payout SK Hynix hasn't announced yet. Aug 13, 2026
How this list is built
A company is on this page when high bandwidth memory is a named, disclosed driver of its business, in one of four roles along the supply chain. We grade how direct that exposure is rather than presenting every name as a pure play, because most of them are not.
- Makers: companies that manufacture and sell HBM stacks.
- Packaging and assembly: companies that stack, bond and package those die into a working module or accelerator package.
- Equipment and test: companies selling the bonding, inspection, burn-in and test systems those steps specifically require.
- Interface silicon: companies selling the connectivity and controller chips that move data between accelerators and memory.
Exposure grades
- Direct. The theme is a primary revenue driver. A change in it changes this company's year.
- Significant. Named by the company as a real driver, but a minority of revenue.
- Indirect. Benefits from the theme inside a diversified business. Do not read it as a pure play.
What is deliberately not here
- Samsung Electronics is the third HBM maker and has no US listing, so it cannot appear as a constituent. It is covered in the comparison below because leaving it out would misrepresent the market.
- Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom are the demand side, not the supply chain. They buy HBM rather than sell it, so a rising HBM price is a cost to them, not revenue. They are covered on our AI chip pages instead.
- Diversified equipment makers are included only at an Indirect grade. HBM is real for them and named on their calls, but it sits inside a much larger business.
Prices, market caps and earnings dates come from our market data provider and refresh through the trading day. Filings come straight from SEC EDGAR. Membership and exposure grades are reviewed by us as companies change what they disclose, and changes are recorded in the page history.
Use this data
Our figures are free to reuse in articles, newsletters, and research with attribution and a link back to this page. How every number is computed: methodology. Current table as a file: download CSV.
Suggested citation: AIStockWire, “HBM memory stocks,” aistockwire.com/sectors/hbm-memory. Questions about the data: [email protected].
Related: SK Hynix (SKHY) company page · Micron (MU) company page · AI infrastructure backlog tracker · AI bubble index
Frequently asked questions
What are HBM stocks?
HBM stocks are the companies that make, package, test or supply equipment for high bandwidth memory, the stacked DRAM that sits inside AI accelerators. Only three companies manufacture HBM at scale, SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron, and only SK Hynix and Micron are buyable on a US exchange. The rest of the sector is the packaging, bonding, test and interface companies the manufacturing process depends on.
Which companies make HBM memory?
SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron. SK Hynix is generally regarded as the leader and is the most HBM-weighted of the three. Samsung is the largest memory manufacturer overall but has no US listing. Micron is the only US-domiciled maker. No other company manufactures HBM at commercial scale today.
Is Nvidia an HBM stock?
No. Nvidia is the largest buyer of HBM, not a seller of it. Higher HBM prices are a cost to Nvidia and revenue to the memory makers. Nvidia matters enormously to this sector as the swing customer whose qualification decisions and order patterns drive the makers' results, but it belongs on the demand side.
Why do two memory companies report opposite quarters?
Because of how much of their volume is sold under long-term contracts. HBM increasingly sells under multi-year agreements with agreed price bands, while conventional DRAM sells at floating spot prices. A maker heavily weighted to contracted HBM will not capture a commodity price spike, while a maker with more conventional DRAM exposure captures it immediately. Identical industry conditions, opposite results.
How do I buy SK Hynix from the US?
Through the SKHY ADR on the Nasdaq, which began regular-way trading on 13 July 2026. Ten ADSs represent one Seoul-listed ordinary share. Be aware the ADR has traded at a varying premium to the underlying Seoul listing, so the ADR carries that premium as a second exposure on top of the company itself.
Published for information only. Nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and membership of this list is not an endorsement of any company on it.