Samsung unveils GDDR7: 40% faster and 20% more energy efficient than GDDR6
Almost exactly a year ago Samsung introduced GDDR6, which was capable of transmitting 24Gbps per pin. Now the company has completed the design of the next gen in graphics RAM dubbed GDD7.
This one goes up to 32Gbps per pin for a total of 1.5 Terabytes per second, 40% faster than the 1.1 Terabytes per second that GDDR6 could achieve.
The increase in speed is due to the adoption of 3-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM3). PAM3 is also used in USB4 and Thunderbolt 5, for example. GDDR6X used in cards like the Nvidia RTX 3090 and 4090 uses the related PAM4 standard.
Anyway, besides being faster, GDDR7 is also 20% more power efficient. Samsung has also developed a low-operating voltage version of GDDR7 that will be used in more power-constrained devices such as laptops.
The company did something else to combat heat too – the epoxy molding compound (EMC) that encases the RAM chips has 70% lower thermal resistance compared to the EMC used in GDDR6 packages, so more heat can be whisked away faster.
Samsung will send out samples to its key customers later this year, so that they can start work on GDDR7-based devices.
