Samsung's new GDDR6W announced for 'immersive metaverse experiences'

Samsung announces its new GDDR6W memory, which was created for immersive metaverse experiences with powerful graphics memory... alrighty.

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Samsung has just announced its new GDDR6W memory, which the South Korean giant says was created for "immersive metaverse experiences with powerful graphics memory" or whatever that means.

The new Samsung GDDR6W was created with double the capacity, and performance based on the cutting-edge Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging (FOWLP) technology. The new Samsung GDDR6W memory is the industry's first next-gen graphics DRAM technology, building on top of the foundations of Samsung's GDDR6 memory with the new Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging (FOWLP) technology, boosting memory bandwidth and capacity.

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GDDR6 has been on the market for a while now, with Samsung unleashing faster 24Gbps GDDR6 memory in July 2021, quickly becoming the industry's fastest graphics DRAM. The new GDDR6W modules have bandwidth and capacity that are doubled over GDDR6 while maintaining the identical side of GDDR6 modules.

Because the company hasn't changed the footprint of its new GDDR6W modules, the new memory chips can easily be installed into the same production processes that Samsung's customers have been using for GDDR6, while the use of FOLP construction and stacking technology, which reduces manufacturing time and costs... win-win, really.

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Samsung displays in the picture above that they can put twice as many memory chips into an identical package size, with graphics DRAM capacity boosted from 16Gb to 32Gb, while bandwidth and the number of I/Os has doubled from 32 to 64. Samsung notes that the area required for memory has been reduced by 50% when compared to previous models.

Normally, the size of the package increases as more and more chips are stacked, but there are physical factors that limit the maximum height of the package. This is where stacking technology comes into play, but there is a trade-off: heat dissipation and performance. Samsung says that in order to overcome these trade-offs, that's why they've used their new FOWLP technology into the new GDDR6W memory.

FOWLP technology directly mounts memory onto the silicon wafer, instead of placing the memory chips onto the PCB, and by doing this the RDL (re-distribution layer) technology is applied, enabling much finer wiring patterns. Samsung adds that there's no PCB involved, which reduces the overall thickness of the package and improves heat dissipation... another win-win situation.

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The total height of the FOWLP-based GDDR6W memory is just 0.7mm, making it 36% slimmer than previous packaging of 1.1mm, and even though it's multi-layered, the new GDDR6W memory has the same thermal properties and performance of existing GDDR6 modules. But unlike GDDR6, the bandwidth of FOWLP-based GDDR6W memory can be doubled, which is thanks to the expanded I/O per single package.

What does it all meaning the end? Samsung's new GDDR6W memory has support for HBM-level bandwidth at a system level. HBM2e memory has system-level bandwidth of 1.6TB/sec based on a 4K system-level I/O and at 3.2Gbps transmission rate per pin.

GDDR6W memory on the other hand, is capable of pumping bandwidth at up to 1.4TB/sec based on 512 system-level I/O and a transmission rate of 22Gbps per pin. GDDR6W memory reduces the number of I/O to around 1/8 compared to HBM2e memory, removing the need of using microbumps. This means it's more cost-effective, without the need of an interposer layer.

CheolMin Park, Vice President of New Business Planning, Samsung Electronics Memory Business explains: "By applying an advanced packaging technology to GDDR6, GDDR6W delivers twice the memory capacity and performance of similar-sized packages. With GDDR6W, we're able to foster differentiated memory products that can satisfy various customer needs - a major step towards securing our leadership in the market".

We will see Samsung's new GDDR6W memory debut in Q2 2023, given that the new GDDR6W memory has already completed its JEDEC standardization. We will see GDDR6W memory inside of small form factor designs including new high-performance accelerators that will be used in AI and HPC applications, with Samsung working with its GPU partners directly.

NEWS SOURCE:videocardz.com

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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