SEOUL, November 26 (AJP) - Chips responsible for a quarter of South Korea’s exports are now edible — coated with honey and banana — thanks to a rare collaboration between convenience-store chain 7-Eleven and memory behemoth SK hynix.
The new 7-Select Honey Banana Flavor snack plays on this year’s buzzword, HBM (high bandwidth memory) — the ultra-fast DRAM that powers Nvidia chips and other AI accelerators, and which accounts for about 70 percent of revenue at SK hynix, the world’s dominant supplier in the AI-specific chip market.
HBM is a vertically stacked array of DRAM dies that sits directly atop a CPU or GPU, delivering far greater bandwidth per package than conventional DRAM. SK hynix, which controlled more than 60 percent of the HBM market as of June through its exclusive supply relationship with Nvidia, has also been the strongest-performing stock on the KOSPI this year.
7-Eleven said the tie-up marks the first collaboration between a convenience-store brand and a semiconductor company to create a “novel consumer experience” amid the AI-driven tech boom.
The snack is shaped like an HBM chip — a neat square block — and features sweet honey-banana cream layered over crunchy corn chips. The smooth sweetness and sharp crunch are meant to mimic HBM’s fast data throughput and precision.
An SK hynix–style product-launch parody video will accompany the release, ending with a humorous reveal of the “Honey Banana Flavor HBM Chip.”
“We wanted to infuse a high-tech narrative into everyday snacks to offer a new brand experience,” said Park Sun-kyung, snack team MD at 7-Eleven. “We will continue to deliver unexpected enjoyment through cross-industry collaborations.”
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