Micron plans to release gddr6 memory by the end of this year

Micron plans to launch gddr6 memory at the end of this year, possibly early next year. The memory builds on gddr5x but offers a bandwidth of 16Gbit/s, twice as much as gddr5. The memory is also more economical and Micron thinks it can be used for many applications.

If Micron manages to release gddr6 by the end of this year, as the company said at an analyst meeting, it will likely beat Samsung, which held out in August 2018 to launch gddr6.

Micron has high hopes for gddr5x and gddr6. The memory manufacturer believes that both memory types will serve the vast majority of the PC market by 2020. By 2020, the console market will also have largely switched to gddr5x and gddr6, Micron expects. That adoption will start later due to the slower upgrade cycles, but should be faster from then on.

The manufacturer thinks that gddr6 can also be used for applications other than gaming. Currently, Micron already supplies economical gddr5 memory for network applications under the name gddr5n, with a bandwidth of 5Gbit/s. With gddr6n, this increases to 10Gbit/s. Gddr5x and gddr6 will also be used for high performance computing. Memory can play a role here in machine learning and analysis, for which GPUs are increasingly being used.

With a bandwidth of 16Gbit/s, Gddr6 is not only faster than gddr5, which has a maximum of 8Gbit/s, but also than gddr5x, which runs at 10Gbit/s or 14Gbit/s according to the specification. The advantage of gddr6 is that it is 20 percent more efficient than gddr5x. Ultimately, the memory is expected to be mainly used for mainstream applications. The high-end segment will be served by the even faster, but more expensive hbm2.

Further savings for both gddr5 and gddr5x and gddr6 should come from moving from a 20nm to a 1xnm process. Micron expects to have ‘meaningful’ 1xnm production in dram by the end of this year.

Micron also says it is working on a new type of memory that is dram-speed, but cheaper to manufacture. Micron does not report further details about this. Micron also did not report anything new about 3D XPoint, the memory that should combine the advantages of nand and dram.