In the shape of a press release SK Hynix announced that they’re going to launch GDDR6 memory in 2018. The new standard will allow for twice the bandwidth per pin as well as 10% lower power consumption.


So far SK Hynix appears to be ready to produce GDDR6 memory chips using 20nm process technology. These chips offer 16Gbps of bandwidth per pin. Doing the calculations we end up with 768Gbps of bandwidth in the case of a 384-bit memory interface. In the case of a 256-bit bus, 512Gbps of bandwidth would result, which also almost as much as NVIDIA’s current flagship, the Titan Xp, offers. This particular card reaches 548Gbps of raw memory bandwidth using GDDR5X memory chip combined with at 384-bit interface.

There is no doubt that GDDR6 will be a huge step forward for the industry. Nevertheless there is also HBM2 if it comes to the absolute high-end market. Still HBM2 will have the significant downside that it’s much more complex to implement than GDDR6, requiring direct to chip communication using an interposer. The upside on the other hand is even higher bandwidth due to lower latencies.

As it is today we would expect GDDR6 to dominate the performance segment regarding graphics cards. HBM2 might be an option for vendors if they’re considering building even more powerful GPUs, mainly in the professional market.




Source: OC3D