Samsung Electronics has announced that it has increased the volume production of its 8Gb HBM2 memory. For those who are unaware: HBM2 (high bandwidth memory) is a memory controller that will be used with future high-end graphics cards. According to Samsung, the boost in production of the memory controller is essential to meet the ever increasing demand from the PC market.
Samsung’s upcoming HBM2 memory controller will feature 8Gb of stacked memory capacity along with an expected bandwidth speeds of up to 256GBps. In comparison the older, widely used memory controller, GDDR5, has bandwidths speeds of merely 32GBps. Meanwhile, the newer GDDR5X memory has a bandwidth speed of around 56GBps. That said, GDDR5 and GDDR5X memory controllers are a lot “cheaper” to manufacture compared to HBM2.
Despite being highly anticipated by many PC gamers and enthusiasts, Samsung isn’t only supplying HBM2 for the general consumer market; the company is targeting users in the field of artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, enterprise, and advanced graphics as well. Samsung has also mentioned that the company “anticipates that its volume production of the 8GB HBM2 will cover more than 50 percent of its HBM2 production by the first half of next year.”
It should be noted, however, that Samsung isn’t the only HBM2 manufacturer in the market. South Korean memory semiconductor giant, SK Hynix, manufactures the memory controller as well. It’ll be interesting to see which company’s HBM2 memory controller will make it to upcoming high-end consumer graphics cards (Nvidia Volta and Radeon Vega) later this year.
(Source: Samsung)
