GDDR4

GDDR4 SDRAM (Graphics Double Data Rate, version 4) is a type of graphics card memory specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. Its main competitor appears to be Rambus's XDR DRAM. GDDR4 is the memory successor to GDDR3. It should be noted that neither is related to the JEDEC DDR3 memory standard.

History

* On 26th October, 2005, Samsung announced the development of 256-Mib GDDR4 memory running at 2.5 Gbit/s. Samsung also revealed plans to sample and mass-produce GDDR4 SDRAM rated at 2.8 Gbit/s per pin. [ [http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/News/GraphicsMemory/category_GraphicsMemory_20051026_0000206749.htm Samsung Electronics Develops Industry's First Ultra-Fast GDDR4 Graphics DRAM] ]

* On 14th February, 2006, Samsung announced the development of 32-bit 512-MiBit GDDR4 SDRAM capable of transferring 3.2 Gbit/s per pin, or 12.8 GB/s for the module. [ [http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/News/GraphicsMemory/category_GraphicsMemory_20060214_0000233753.htm Samsung Develops Ultra-fast Graphics Memory: A More Advanced GDDR4 at Higher Density] ]

* On 5th July, 2006, Samsung announced the mass-production of 32-bit 512-Mibit GDDR4 SDRAM rated at 2.4 Gbit/s per pin, or 9.6 GB/s for the module. Although designed to match the performance of XDR DRAM on high-pin-count memory, it would not be able to match XDR performance on low-pin-count designs. [ [http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/05/samsung_gddr4/ Samsung sends GDDR4 graphics memory into mass production] ]

* On 9th February, 2007, Samsung announced mass-production of 32-bit 512-Mbit GDDR4 SDRAM, rated at 2.8 Gbit/s per pin, or 11.2 GB/s per module. This module will be available for the latest version of both Nvidia's and AMD's latest graphics cards. [ [http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37559 Samsung releases fastest GDDR-4 SGRAM] ]

*On 23rd February, 2007, Samsung announced 32-bit 512-Mibit GDDR4 SDRAM rated at 4.0 Gbit/s per pin or 16 GB/s for the module and expects the memory to appear on commercially-available graphics cards by the end of year 2007. [ [http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/23/samsung_gddr/ Samsung accelerates graphics memory to 2000 MHz] ]

Technologies

GDDR4 SDRAM introduced DBI (Data Bus Inversion) and Multi-Preamble to reduce data transmission delay. Prefetch was increased from 4 to 8 bits. The maximum number of memory banks for GDDR4 has been increased to 8. To achieve the same bandwidth as GDDR3 SDRAM, the GDDR4 core runs at half the speed of a GDDR3 core of the same raw bandwidth. Core voltage was decreased to 1.5 V.

On the signaling front, GDDR4 expands the chip I/O buffer to 8 bits per two cycles, allowing for greater sustained bandwidth during burst transmission, but at the expense of significantly increased CAS latency (CL), determined mainly by the double reduced count of the address/command pins and half-clocked DRAM cells, compared to GDDR3. The number of addressing pins was reduced to half that of the GDDR3 core, and were used for power and ground, which also increases latency. Another advantage of GDDR4 is power efficiency: running at 2.4 Gbit/s, it uses 45% less power when compared to GDDR3 chips running at 2.0 Gbit/s.

In Samsung's GDDR4 SDRAM datasheet, it was referred as 'GDDR4 SGRAM', or 'Graphics Double Data Rate version 4 Synchronous Graphics RAM'. However, the essential block write feature is not available, so it is not classified as SGRAM.

Adoption

The memory became available with ATI Technologies' Radeon X1950 XTX and Radeon HD 2900 XT and 2600 XT video cards. GDDR4 is intended to achieve speeds as high as 1.4 GHz (2.8 GBit/s). However, Samsung had aimed to increase GDDR4 to effective speeds as high as 1.6 GHz (3.2 GBit/s, at higher voltage) and was rumoured to have implemented this improvement into some of the Radeon HD 2900 XT cards Fact|date=August 2007.

Graphics cards incorporating GDDR4 memory are now available for purchase with a clock rate of around 1.0 GHz to 1.1 GHz. Samsung is quoted saying they would have 1.6 GHz GDDR4 ready for market as early as July, 2006. NVIDIA was also rumored to have had plans of utilizing the memory on newer revisions of their current-generation GeForce 8-Series GPUs, but instead NVIDIA has used GDDR3 in all of the GeForce 8 cards.

The video memory manufacturer Qimonda (formerly Infineon Memory Products division) has stated it will "skip" the development of GDDR4, and move directly to GDDR5 [ [http://news.softpedia.com/news/Qimonda-Plans-GDDR5-50282.shtml Softpedia report] ] .

References

External links

* [http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory/display/20040505122429.html X-Bit Labs (GDDR4 closing in)]
* [http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory/display/20060214062714.html X-Bit Labs (GDDR4 achieving 3.2 GHz)]
* [http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3781 DailyTech (ATI X1950 Now September 14)]
* [http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3446 DailyTech (ATI Radeon X1950 Announced)]
* [http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3162 (Samsung Shipping Production GDDR4)]
* [http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/News/GraphicsMemory/category_GraphicsMemory_20060705_0000273583.htm Samsung Mass Producing Most Advanced Graphics Memory: GDDR4, press release]

ee also

*Video memory
*List of device bandwidths