Micron‘s (MU +0.59%) stock has been a huge winner over the past year, as the company has benefited greatly from the ongoing supercyles in the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) and NAND (flash) markets. This has led to explosive revenue growth and ballooning gross margins for the company. This was on full display last quarter, when Micron saw its revenue nearly triple and its gross margin more than double to 74.4%.
However, the company announced perhaps even more important news in mid-March when it revealed that its HBM4 36GB 12-Hi memory, designed specifically for Nvidia‘s Vera Rubin platform, was now in mass production. For graphics processing units (GPUs) and other artificial intelligence (AI) chips to perform their best, they need to be packaged with high-bandwidth memory (HBM). This is because HBM sits next to these chips, allowing them to quickly store, retrieve, and transfer data to speed up processing times.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
No longer a laggard
The move to mass production for the HBM4 is a pivotal moment for Micron. The company has long been considered a technology laggard and more of a fast follower in the memory market compared to Korean companies Samsung and SK Hynix, which were the early leaders in HBM.
However, by getting its HBM4 solution into mass production at the same time as its Korean counterparts, Micron has shown that it is a true competitor ready to grab significant market share in the HBM space moving forward.
Micron Technology
Today’s Change
(0.59%) $2.10
Current Price
$357.56
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$403B
Day’s Range
$354.15 – $368.71
52wk Range
$61.54 – $471.34
Volume
1.9M
Avg Vol
38M
Gross Margin
58.54%
Dividend Yield
0.13%
Micron’s HBM4 solution is already a strong technological achievement, with more than double the bandwidth of HBM3 and providing a 20% improvement in power efficiency. Given the huge energy costs associated with AI, power improvement efficiencies are always important. Meanwhile, Micron has shown itself to be a leader in this specific area, with its proprietary 1-gamma (1γ) DRAM node.
By designing HBM4 specifically for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, the company is attaching it to perhaps Nvidia’s most important platform. Vera Rubin combines both GPUs and central processing units (CPUs) into one package, and is huge point of emphasis for the chip giant as it looks to transition into being a complete AI infrastructure solution and not just a GPU designer. Meanwhile, CPUs are set to become an increasingly important part of data centers given the rise of agentic AI, as AI agents need more of the orchestration and logic that these chips can provide.
At the same time, Micron and Nvidia’s relationship extends beyond HBM4 with Vera Rubin. It will also provide PCIe Gen6 SSDs (peripheral component interconnect express solid state drives) and SOCAMM2 (small outline compression attached memory) modules for the Rubin ecosystem. The former is like a high-speed data layer for GPUs, while the latter can help CPUs jump more quickly between tasks.
Not a just a cyclical commodity play anymore
Micron has already confirmed that its HBM4 capacity for this year is sold out under binding contracts. Meanwhile, it also announced its first-ever five-year strategic customer agreement, which gives it much more visibility than its traditional one-year or even quarterly arrangements.
This is a major shift that can help transform Micron from being a cyclical commodity play to really being seen as a high-tech AI growth stock. And while Micron did not explicitly say this deal was with Nvidia, given its integration into the chipmaker’s Vera Rubin platform, it makes Nvidia the most likely candidate.
Overall, this should provide both strong growth and increased visibility for Micron moving forward. And with the stock trading at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of below 4 times based on fiscal 2027 analyst estimates, the stock could have massive upside if it can prove that it is no longer the cyclical commodity play it has been in the past.