Hynix Introduces World's First 7Gbps 40nm 2Gb GDDR5 DRAM

From DailyTech: Most video cards shipping today come equipped with 1GB of graphics memory. This enables the GPU to access large amounts of fast memory on the video card without having to go through system memory. The amount of memory used in video cards has been growing rapidly in size in order to accommodate the capabilities of today's modern DirectX 11 GPUs.

GDDR5 DRAM has become the dominant standard due to its high bandwidth capabilities. First introduced in 2007, it has since been demonstrated by Samsung to be capable of 7Gbps, ensuring a bright future ahead.

Hynix was the first to show off 65nm 1Gb GDDR5 chips in 2007, and has since made significant advances. The company has now announced the world's first 40nm-class 2Gb GDDR5 DRAM capable of 7Gbps of bandwidth.

The new chip was designed to minimize power consumption with a 1.35V operating voltage. This is a 20% reduction over the company's 50nm class GDDR5 chips. Hynix plans to start mass production of 2Gb GDDR5 in the second half of 2010 in order to meet the increasing demand for high performance graphics DRAM.

Increased bit densities are enabled by moving to the smaller, more efficient process. This will allow video card manufacturers to either use fewer chips for the same amount of memory, or double the size of the frame buffer.

Future cards similar to ATI's Radeon HD 5970 are prime candidates for the new chips. The world's most powerful video card is currently equipped with 2GB of GDDR5.

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