Smugglers are reportedly soldering top-tier HBM onto deliberately useless processors to sneak it into China, and the…
- Smugglers are reportedly pairing Samsung and SK hynix HBM with deliberately useless processors so the package passes export regulations as a low-end chip
- Shenzhen workshops then heat the packages, pry off the HBM3E, and sell it for about $4,000 a stack, mostly to Huawei customers
- The trick exploits a December 2024 BIS exclusion for co-packaged chips, but only "where the dominant function" is processing
Some of the most sought-after memory in the AI industry is reportedly reaching China attached to processors that were designed never to be used.
A new report from The Information claims smugglers are taking high-bandwidth memory (HBM) made by Samsung and SK hynix, packaging it alongside cheap, low-performance server chips, and exporting the combination as an ordinary processor with a CPU that nobody really wants.
Once the packages reach mainland China, workshops heat them until the solder gives way, pry off the memory stacks, and discard...
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