Samsung Begins GDDR6 RAM Production: What It Will Mean For Future Tech And Gaming
Samsung recently announced that it has already begun the mass production of its brand new GDDR6 chips. The South Korean tech firm aims to meet the growing demands of more powerful computing and storage devices, which includes applications like artificial intelligence, deep neural AI, autonomous driving, network systems, and 4K/8K gaming. According to Samsung, several graphics DRAM chips will launch this year, and its products will offer consumers the highest performance and densities possible. The company also teased that its chips will likely make their way into several next-generation graphics cards and graphics systems coming out very soon.
At the recently held 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung had already mentioned that its new GDDR6 chips were coming. However, they neglected to mention when, exactly, they would begin production. The new 16Gb GDDR6 chips will reportedly offer twice the speed of the current generation 8Gb GDDR5 RAM. This is thanks to the use of cutting-edge 10nm nodes instead of a 20nm die. The new 10nm process node also allows each die to deliver data transfer rates of up to 72GBs and hold 2GB of VRAM. A graphics card based on a 384-bit interface with 12 dies could essentially offer up to 24GB of VRAM, which is twice the capacity of currently available consumer-grade cards.
Theoretically, the maximum bandwidth output of a 384-bit card utilizing the new solution could reach up to 864GBs. These are speeds that actually come very close to the 900GBs on the almost $9,000 commercial-grade Nvidia Tesla 100 with the latest HBM2 solution. All of this is achieved with 35 percent less power as the chips will only require a power input of 1.35V instead of 1.55V. This basically means that consumers will soon be able to buy cheaper products that offer better graphics performance and less power consumption.
Samsung Begins Mass Producing Fastest 18 Gbps GDDR6 Memory For High Performance Graphics Cards – Up To 24 GB of VRAM, 864 GB/s Bandwidth https://t.co/6E3Pg5kE3t pic.twitter.com/lVILFSzuth
— Wccftech (@wccftech) January 18, 2018
It has to be noted that companies like SK Hynix and Micron had already announced plans to produce GDDR6 memory chips. While other companies are still likely finalizing their designs and production methods, Samsung is now busy stamping out chips from its foundries. This places Samsung in an advantageous position, as its chip will now be the most likely to be used for early adaptors that are planning to launch their products this year.
