[Chiptalk] Will the 'GDDR7' to be mounted on Nvidia GPUs be Korean-made or American-made?

Next-Generation Graphics DRAM 'GDDR7' Competition
All Three Memory Companies Plan Mass Production in Second Half
Replacement Demand Expected Starting with Nvidia

Next year, NVIDIA's artificial intelligence (AI) laptop graphics processing units (GPUs) are expected to be equipped with the next-generation graphics DRAM called 'GDDR7,' intensifying competition in the AI memory market. GDDR is gaining attention as a substitute for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in some high-performance devices due to its fast processing speed and relatively low cost. All three major memory companies?Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron?have announced plans to mass-produce GDDR7 in the second half of this year, and it is anticipated that GDDR7 will generate market replacement demand starting with NVIDIA products.

According to industry sources on the 3rd, NVIDIA's next-generation laptop GPU 'GeForce RTX50' series, scheduled for release next year, will be equipped with GDDR7.

GDDR is a type of DRAM primarily used in GPUs, specialized for video and graphics processing. Just as DDR is used in a computer's central processing unit (CPU) and low-power specialized DRAM (LPDDR) is used in application processors (AP) considered the brains of smartphones to maximize performance, GDDR helps GPUs perform at their best. Recently, it has also been recognized as a high-performance memory with high utility in the AI field beyond graphics.

Typically, high-performance AI accelerators installed in high-performance AI servers use HBM, but due to its high cost, not all AI accelerators can use HBM. GDDR, being more affordable than HBM, is expanding its applications in data centers, extended reality (XR), autonomous driving, and automotive infotainment. Market research firm Industry Growth Insights forecasts that the GDDR market will grow to $4.8 billion (approximately 6.6 trillion KRW) by 2030.

In the GDDR market, the U.S. company Micron is currently leading, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix closely pursuing. It is known that Micron supplies most of the GDDR used in NVIDIA GPUs. However, considering that Micron's current GDDR6X operates at speeds of 19?24 Gbps (gigabits per second), Korean companies, which are technologically ahead, are expected to overturn the market landscape in the GDDR7 era. GDDR7 features a 50% performance improvement, 20% higher power efficiency, and significantly reduced heat generation compared to the current mainstream GDDR6 generation.

Samsung Electronics was the first to announce the development of GDDR7. In July last year, Samsung became the first in the industry to develop 32 Gbps GDDR7 DRAM. This product can process up to 1.5 TB (terabytes) of data per second, which is equivalent to processing 50 ultra-high-definition (UHD) movies of 30 GB each in one second. Compared to the previous version, GDDR6, the data processing speed is 1.4 times faster, and power efficiency has improved by 20%. In February this year, Samsung also demonstrated 37 Gbps GDDR7 DRAM for the first time at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). Although mass production was initially planned for the first half of this year, the schedule was delayed due to coordination with customers, and mass production is now planned to start in the second half of the year.

SK Hynix recently unveiled GDDR7 with world-class performance. SK Hynix's GDDR7 achieves an operating speed of 32 Gbps per pin and can reach up to 40 Gbps depending on the operating environment, processing up to 1.5 TB of data per second. This speed is equivalent to processing 300 full HD movies (5 GB each) in one second. To address heat issues, new packaging technology has also been introduced. The company has expressed its ambition to begin mass production within the third quarter.

Micron also completed the development of a product with a maximum speed of 32 Gbps last year and is preparing for mass production. At Computex 2024 held in Taiwan in June, Micron introduced its next-generation GDDR7, explaining that it offers a 60% increase in bandwidth and a 50% improvement in power efficiency compared to the previous generation. The company plans to supply products to the market in the second half of the year.

The industry is paying close attention to which GDDR7 products will be installed in the next-generation desktop GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. An industry insider said, "The market already expects Korean-made GDDR7 products to be installed in the next-generation desktop GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD," adding, "As the applications of GDDR continue to expand, it will emerge as another battleground alongside HBM for the three major memory companies."

Taiwanese market research firm TrendForce also stated, "As new GPUs enter the verification stage, production of GDDR7, which commands a 20?30% premium over GDDR6, is increasing," and forecasted, "When GDDR7 products ship in the third quarter, the average selling price (ASP) of memory will also rise slightly."