AMD abandons HBM for inferior LPDDR5x as AI monster devours precious high-bandwidth memory

• AMD's Versal Premium Gen 2 Memory on Package launch formally ends HBM in its adaptive SoC lineup
• The move represents a ~65% bandwidth cut from the discontinued Versal HBM's 840 GB/s, clocking in at just 288 GB/s
• AMD is painting this as a win, citing better availability, a smaller form factor, efficiency wins, and guaranteed memory supply for the next 15 years

The AI boom may have just eaten AMD's own lunch, thanks to an HBM shortage that forced it to resort to lower-bandwidth LPDDR5x for its Versal Premium Gen 2 Memory on Package offerings.

AMD recently announced the Versal Premium Gen 2 Memory-on-Package family, which leverages up to 32GB of LPDDR5x memory directly onto the chip package.

The move, which effectively cuts bandwidth by 65% compared with previous-generation Versal offerings that use HBM, is seen by many as the need of the hour as memory supplies dwindle amid overwhelming demand.

A needs-based move to lower-bandwidth memory

AMD's move is calculated, even if it comes at a significant performance cost to the chip designer. HBM memory supply is strained, and even within AMD's own lineup, its more profitable (and more demanding) Instinct datacenter GPUs have priority for HBMs' current and future iterations.

AMD is therefore both a beneficiary and a casualty of the same AI demand wave that creates opportunities on one end but constrains supply for other segments, such as its consumer-grade hardware, gaming, and SoC divisions.

AMD's Versal lineup stems from Xilinx, which it acquired in 2022. Xilinx shipped its first on-package memory FPGAs, the Virtex UltraScale+ HBM parts, in 2018 with up to 16 GB of first-generation HBM. The follow-up Versal HBM series, a variant of the Versal Premium line, supported up to 32 GB of HBM2e with 840 GB/s bandwidth.

The problem for AMD isn't just sourcing supply for its new Versal FPGAs, something it calls an Adaptive SoC (System-on-Chip), but the fact that these are extremely long-tail products. In other words, support, dedicated supply, and accessories must remain available to consumers for a long time if they are to embrace and continue working with a particular FPGA class, which complicates matters.

AMD discontinued its last-generation Versal lineup in September 2025, citing HBM2E supply constraints rather than any issues with the chips themselves, and offered no alternatives to customers, stating only that "final orders (LTB) for Adaptive SoC parts will be accepted until June 30, 2026, subject to material availability."

The new Versal lineup effectively addresses this gap, stating that it has a 15-year lifecycle and citing "memory longevity" as the reason for its pivot to LPDDR5X.

AMD's move does bring it some other advantages despite the obvious bandwidth chokepoint: LPDDR5X has better availability than HBM for the foreseeable future, and it also operates at industrial temperatures, whereas HBM tends to be stacked in ways that require advanced cooling. Not only does LPDDR5X run cooler, often passively so in most configurations, but thanks to sporting only 4 memory chips onboard, it is over 60% smaller than comparable FPGAs.

The newer FPGAs will be considerably cheaper to manufacture than their HBM alternatives in current market conditions, and with Chinese memory suppliers such as CXMT also eyeing the same market, Versal Gen 2 might be the long-stay that its predecessor was initially intended to be in a rapidly changing market.