Samsung Introduces First Of It’s Kind GDDR7 Memory Chips

The next generation of graphics memory, GDDR7 DRAM, the first in the industry, has been developed by Samsung and will be included in upcoming computer, automobile, and gaming gear launches. Samsung made this announcement on Wednesday. The new chips will likely be added to the company’s major partners’ next-generation systems later this year for testing. If everything goes according to plan, products using Samsung’s GDDR7 memory may be available early in the following year.

According to Yongcheol Bae, executive vice president of the Memory Product Planning Team at Samsung Electronics. “Our GDDR7 DRAM will help elevate user experiences in areas that require outstanding graphics performance, such as workstations, PCs, and game consoles, and is expected to expand into future applications such as AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and automotive vehicles.” 

The first generation of Samsung’s new 16GB GDDR7 memory modules, according to the company, will provide “the industry’s highest speed yet,” as a result of the use of Pulse Amplitude Modulation-3 (PAM3) technology. PAM3 is a type of signal modulation that offers a higher bandwidth than PAM2 used in GDDR6. As opposed to the 1.1TBps GDDR6 chips that the company revealed last year, Samsung claims that its GDDR7 memory can generate 1.5TBps of bandwidth.

Additionally, Samsung claims that its GDDR7 memory will have increased pin speeds of up to 32Gbps. This is not as fast as the 36Gbps per pin speeds that the company has previously stated it hopes to offer, but it is 33 percent faster than the 24Gbps per pin data rate of Samsung’s best GDDR6 products. Samsung has increased the speeds of earlier generations of its memory technology, according to AnandTech, starting with GDDR6 at 14Gbps and then boosting it to 24Gbps. It is therefore probable that Samsung may do the same with its GDDR7 chips once they are available on the market.

In the upcoming years, that might offer a bigger increase in bandwidth for graphics cards. According to VideoCardz, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080’s 24Gbps-rated Micron GDDR6X model is the fastest GDDR6 memory currently found in GPUs. Otherwise, the majority of GPUs with GDDR6 memory normally operate at no more than 20Gbps.

According to Samsung, GDDR7 DRAM is 20% more energy efficient than GDDR6 because of “power-saving design technology optimized for high-speed operations.” The company did not provide any additional information regarding the performance of such chips, but it will be providing a low-operating-voltage option for hardware, such as laptops, that must be more conscious of power usage. Samsung declined to say what manufacturing method it employs to create its brand-new GDDR7 DRAM.

Samsung is reportedly utilizing a brand-new epoxy moulding compound that is intended to reduce heat generation and stop components from overheating, according to the press release. Compared to GDDR6 memory chips, Samsung claims that this offers a 70% reduction in package heat resistance.

The creation of GDDR7 has involved the entire industry. Although Samsung is the first manufacturer to declare that the creation of its own chips is complete, there is still work to be done before the chips are put into mass production. The first GDDR7 verification solution has already been released by system design company Cadence, and Micron previously stated that it planned to release its own GDDR7 memory in the first half of 2024. This could lead to competition among memory manufacturers to have the first product that is ready for market.