Samsung announced in June 2022 that it would release GDDR7 DRAM chips with 50% greater performance than the current-generation GDDR6X DRAM used in the most recent GPUs from Nvidia. Now, the company has disclosed additional information about its GDDR7 DRAM chips.
Samsung disclosed on a slide at the IEDM 2022 conference, which began on 3 December, that it is developing GDDR7 DRAM chips for next-generation GPUs and servers. PAM3 (Pulse-Amplitude Modulation) IO signaling will be implemented in the company’s upcoming technology to improve performance over GDDR6X DRAM used in recently released GPUs. PAM3 IO signaling transmits data through three levels of digital signals: -1, 0, and 1. NRZ IO signaling, in contrast, uses only two levels: 0 and 1.
GDDR7 will provide 25% better performance than the NRZ (Non-Return-To-Zero) signaling used in GDDR6 DRAM, according to Samsung. Moreover, the South Korean company anticipates a data bandwidth of up to 36Gbps, which is twice as fast as the GDDR6X DRAM used in GPUs such as the Nvidia RTX 4090.
As both AMD and Nvidia have recently announced new consumer-grade GPUs, it is unlikely that Samsung will release products utilizing its GDDR7 chips anytime soon. These DRAM chips will most likely make their debut in enterprise-level systems first.
