Qimonda Gets Ready With First GDDR5 Samples

Qimonda has just released its first GDDR5 SGRAM samples for customer development. The GDDR5 is a successor of the GDDR4 technology specification which features a high data rate of 20GB/s for GDDR4 while still able to maintain considerably low power dissipation as compared to 16GB. Even though it is still too early to be in JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) compliance specification but good news is the first samples may trigger more development and earlier definition of this new specification for high performance mobile and video applications.

GDDR (Graphical DDR) operates at higher clock speed as compared to DDR memory. Higher clock speed is traded off with higher heat dissipation when special design consideration and cooling mechanism are needed to be in place. But with the new release of GDDR5 with enhanced power saving feature, the power dissipation could be reduced significantly by dynamically changing the data rate based on the workload on the system. Some of the market segments that can utilize GDDR5 are mobile, notebook graphics applications especially gaming segment when excellent graphics performance is in hungry demand.

It may still take a while before the final GDDR5 products being released to the commercial market. We should foresee that some of the high end graphic products such as NVIDIA that will feature GDDR5 support for its next generation processor architecture.