Samsung develops GDDR6 DRAM with 24Gbps speed for graphics cards
Image: Samsung
Samsung said on Thursday that it has developed a new GDDR6 (graphics double data rate) DRAM with a data transfer rate of 24 gigabits per second (Gbps).
A premium graphics card that packs the chips will support a data processing rate of up to 1.1 terabytes (TB), equivalent to processing 275 movies in Full HD resolution within a second, the South Korean tech giant said.
Samsung said the DRAM was comprised of 16Gb chips using its third-generation 10nm process node, which also incorporates extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography during their production.
The company also applied high-k metal gates, or the use of metals besides silicon dioxide to make the gate hold more charge, on the DRAM.
Samsung said this allowed its latest DRAM to operate at a rate over 30% faster than its 18Gbps GGDR6 DRAM predecessor.
The DRAM follows the latest GDDR6 DRAM standards set by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) __ the global standard-setting body for memory chips __ so AI and graphics accelerator vendors can adapt it for their products easily, the company said.
Samsung said it also applied dynamic voltage switching to increase the power efficiency of the DRAM, which lowers its working voltage down to as low as 1.1V from the previous lowest rate at 1.35V, allowing batteries in notebooks to last longer.
The company said it will begin verifying the DRAM with a major GPU customer for their next-generation system this month.
The high-performance graphic DRAM market is expected to grow by double digits every year, Samsung noted, adding it expected its new chip to be applied in PCs, notebooks and game consoles as well as in high-performance computing, electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles.