Samsung will be releasing later this year a new iteration of memory chips – the first in seven years – that will keep pace with the growth of data centres and AI computing.
The 512GB DDR5 module is the first to use High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) tech, offering 7,200 Mbps speeds — over double that of DDR4, Samsung said in a press statement.
Samsung first used HKMG tech in 2018 with GDDR6 chips used in GPUs. Developed by Intel, it uses hafnium instead of silicon, with metals replacing the normal polysilicon gate electrodes.
The new module will be used in servers performing ‘the most extreme compute-hungry, high-bandwidth workloads.’ Right now, it's aimed at supercomputing, AI and machine learning functions.
A fit for data centre power needs
The high dielectric material contained in the layer reduces current leakage and therefore allows higher performance. At the same time, Samsung is also reducing power usage in the new module by 13%, making it ideal for data centres.
With 7,200 Mbps speeds, Samsung's latest module would deliver around 57.6 GB/s transfer speeds on a single channel.
The chip industry has been eagerly awaiting the launch of the new memory standard and support of it will also come with the arrival of Intel’s Xeon Scalable processors, codenamed Sapphire Reds.
Samsung is currently sampling different variations of the DDR5 memory product families to customers for verification and certification.
