Samsung Electronics recently announced that it has begun mass producing the 2.4Gbps 8GB HBM2 memory controllers. The company’s second generation HBM2 module (also known as “Aquabolt”) currently features the fastest DRAM data transmission speeds to date. Samsung Electronics further mentioned that that the introduction of a faster HBM2 module “should accelerate the expansion of supercomputing and the graphics card market.”
When it comes to performance, Samsung Electronics’ second generation HBM2 memory controller features a “pin speed” of 2.4Gbps at 1.2V. In comparison, the first generation HBM2 module by the company came with speeds of 1.6Gbps at 1.2V and 2.0Gbps at 1.35V; which means that the new HBM2 package comes with an improvement rate of about 50%.
Samsung Electronics say that a single Aquabolt HBM2 module is capable of transfer speeds of around 307GBps, which the company claims is 9.6 times faster compared to the older HBM2 memory controller. Four of these Aquabolt HBM2 memory controllers when stacked are able to churn out an eye opening data transmission speed of 1.2TBps.
Aside from improvements in bandwidth speeds, Samsung Electronics’ new HBM2 module is also fitted with an “additional protective layer” at the bottom of the package to increase its physical strength. Unfortunately, it’s not known when we’ll get to see this memory controller be used in consumer-grade products, but one’s best bet would probably be sometime in late 2018 or 2019.
(Source: Samsung)
