Samsung Begins Production Of GDDR6 High Speed DRAM For Graphics At A Blistering 18Gbps

Here we go PC gamers. Samsung has just officially announced the company has begun mass production of 16-gigabit GDDR6 memory to feed the memory bandwidth needs of more sophisticated graphics processing engines (GPUs), artificial-intelligence, the automotive sector and markets beyond.

Just last week the chip maker announced their 2nd Gen 8GB HBM2 memory with a scorching 307GB/s bandwidth and 2.4GB data transfer rate per pin at 1.2V. While GDDR6 doesn’t enjoy quite the same speed boosts, it does have some impressive numbers to get excited about.

The new GDDR6 memory platform is built on Samsung’s 10nm die and comes in a 16Gb density – a geometry reduction from the company’s 20nm 8Gb GDDR5 memory. Samsung says the new memory is clocked at an 18Gbps pin speed with a 72GB/s bandwidth (that's versus the current top end of GDDR5 at about 12Gbps). That gives upcoming GPUs and other tech featuring GDDR6 significantly more transfer speed over the aging GDDR5. By comparison, HBM2 features a 307GB/s bandwidth, which is 10x the performance of GDDR5.

Samsung's 10nm fab process GDDR6 allows the company to increase manufacturing productivity of the new memory by 30%. That’s great news for those looking for hot new GPUs using the memory, as availability of mainstream and flagship graphics cards have been held up by production of new memory in the past. The new 16Gb GDDR6 uses a low-power circuit design and only requires up to 1.35V compared to 1.55V of GDDR5. As an aside, Micron also recently announced it was readying GDDR6, so there's critical mass here, though MU is not in production as of yet.

For gamers the future is looking very bright. However, Samsung has their eye on more than a single prize. The company has plans to marry their new memory products with other premium products such as 8K Ultra HD video processing devices, VR gear, Augmented Reality (AR) applications, AI and more.