SK hynix prepares to display GDDR7 and HBM3E at ISSCC 2024

Recently, we reported that Samsung will showcase its latest GDDR7 memory technology at ISSCC 2024, held from February 18 to 22 in San Francisco, USA. This technology boasts a rate of 37Gb/s for 16Gbit modules. Not to be outdone, SK Hynix, another South Korean semiconductor giant, will also flex its muscles at this prestigious conference.

SK Hynix is set to become the second company, after Samsung, to display GDDR7 memory chips. Their products offer a slightly slower speed of 35.4Gbps compared to Samsung’s, but the storage density remains the same at 16Gbit per chip. Like Samsung, SK Hynix’s GDDR7 also utilizes the PAM3 signal encoding mechanism and features a specialized low-power design. It remains to be seen whether it will include similar four low-clock states as Samsung’s.

GDDR7 is tailored for the next generation of gaming graphics cards, while the AI HPC field will require HBM3E. At the conference, SK Hynix will present its latest 16-layer stack of 48GB HBM3E chips. This new design theoretically allows a single chip to reach speeds of 1280GB/s. Using four HBM3E chips can achieve a staggering 192GB capacity and 5.12TB/s of ultra-high bandwidth. The new HBM3E incorporates a novel full-feature TSV (Through-Silicon Via) design and a 6-phase read queue gating scheme for optimized silicon via area.

Lastly, SK Hynix is bringing LPDDR5T memory to mobile devices, boasting frequencies as high as 10533MHz and a memory voltage of 1.05V. Such high data speeds are made possible by exclusive parasitic capacitance reduction technology and voltage offset calibration receiver technology. This new high-frequency LPDDR5T memory promises to enhance performance for smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks.