Micron GDDR6X memory powers new Nvidia GPUs
Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei
Friday 4 September 2020
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Micron Technology has claimed its GDDR6X is the world's first to power system bandwidth up to one terabyte per second (TB/s). Working with Nvidia, Micron debuted GDDR6X in the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 graphics processing units (GPU).
Building on its most recent collaboration with Nvidia for the GeForce RTX graphics card (enabled by GDDR6), Micron said it transforms the memory/GPU interface with GDDR6X to accelerate performance on complex graphics workloads across next-generation gaming applications.
The new Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs - the second generation of the Nvidia RTX PC gaming platform - feature new ray tracing cores, Tensor Cores and streaming multiprocessors. Powered by the Nvidia Ampere architecture, which delivers increases of up to 1.9 times performance-per-watt over the previous generation, the RTX 30 series powers graphics experiences at all resolutions, even up to 8K. Nvidia claimed the RTX 30 series represents the greatest GPU generational leap in the company's history.
Micron said it achieved GDDR6X's breakthrough bandwidth by applying innovative signal transmission technology, four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4), to revolutionize how memory moves data. Micron claimed it is the first in the industry to implement PAM4 in memory, creating a new benchmark for future generations of graphics memory.
By using PAM4 multilevel signaling techniques, GDDR6X transfers data much faster, doubling the input/output (I/O) data rate. Until now, graphics memory was capped at 64 gigabytes per second (GB/s), transmitting one bit per cycle through the traditional binary standard, which relies on two signal levels to transmit data encoded as 1s or 0s. Instead, Micron said its novel PAM4 technique employs four distinct levels to transmit two bits of data to and from the memory at a time. As a result, Micron's GDDR6X increases memory bandwidth to 84 GB/s for each component, translating to system bandwidth of up to 1TB/s.
GDDR6X delivers lower power per transaction (pJ/bit) than previous generations, said Micron.
GDDR6X is now available as part of Micron's new ultra-bandwidth solutions portfolio. Micron delivers GDDR6X memory in eight gigabits (Gb) density, with speeds of 19 to 21 Gb/s. Starting in 2021, 16Gb density units will be added.
The GeForce RTX 3080 is available for purchase starting September 17, and the GeForce RTX 3090 is available starting September 24 on Nvidia's website.
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