Samsung Electronics has announced that it had created the world’s first GDDR3 memory chip capable of working at 2.0GHz effective clock-speed. The company has also said its 1.60GHz GDDR3 memory products were available for customers.
Samsung’s GDDR3 memory rated to run at 2.0GHz features 512Mb density and was made using 90nm process technology. The new GDDR3 incorporates a JEDEC standard 136-ball package. Samsung did not reveal when such device is to be available, but indicated that it had initiated mass production of its 1.60GHz 512Mb GDDR3, which was developed in December 2004.
“The 1.6Gbps GDDR3 is available in graphic cards with a maximum density of 1GB by combining sixteen monolithic 512Mb GDDR3s together,” Samsung said in a statement.
NVIDIA’s latest top-end graphics card GeForce 7800 GTX features 1.20GHz GDDR3 memory, whereas specifications of ATI’s forthcoming code-named R520 product are yet unclear. It is projected that once ATI launches its new visual processing unit, NVIDIA may follow with a higher-speed GeForce 7800-series part.
Samsung also said its GDDR3 memory will be featured in next-generation game consoles, but did not elaborate whether in Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Revolution or Sony PlayStation 3.
Market research firm, Mercury Research, predicts that the global graphics DRAM market will increase 43 percent to $1.5 billion in 2005 and exceed $2 billion in 2006.
