Samsung Electronics made an announcement on the 19th that it is going to mass-produce HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory 2) which is 7 times faster than D-RAM that has the fastest speed currently.

HBM D-RAM, which uses TSV (Through Silicon Via) technology, is a product that has faster processing speed compared to wire package. TSV is a high-tech packaging technology that grinds semiconductor wafers thinner than half of thickness of a regular paper, makes many fine holes, and forms electrodes that penetrate holes in upper layers and bottom layers vertically.

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<cross-sectional diagram of HBM2>

Samsung Electronics’ 4GB HBM D-RAM meets standards for Gen.2 HBM (HBM2). Its speed is 2 times faster than standards for previous generation and it is able to satisfy characteristics that next-generation graphic cards and ultra-high performance computing environment require by being ultra slim, saving a lot of power and giving high reliability.

It is composed of 4 8GB HBM2 D-RAMs that are produced by 20-nano process, has 4 core chips layered on top of a buffer chip, and has each chip connected by TSV Bump. To improve speed with high bandwidth, it has about 5,000 holes, which are 36 times more than number of holes that previous 8Gb TSV DDR4 has.

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4GB HBM2 D-RAM is able to send 256GB data per second and is able to process 7 times more of data than 4Gb GDDR5 (9Gbps) that is currently the fastest out of current D-RAMs. It was also able to greatly reduce electricity consumption by doubling the amount of data that is sent per watt.

HBM2 D-RAM is able to decrease D-RAM mount area by more than 95% compared to GDDR5 that needs to arrange D-RAMs on top of a graphic card plane. For example, 8 chips need to be arranged very widely when 8Gb GDDR5 is loaded into a 8GB graphic card. However 4GB HBM2 D-RAM only needs 2 chips which can greatly reduce amount of space that D-RAMs take in a graphic card.

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Samsung Electronics is planning to mass-produce 8GB HBM2 D-RAM that has twice more of capacity in first half of 2016.

“By mass-producing next-generation HBM2 D-RAM, we were able to greatly contribute towards global IT industries entering next-generation ultra-high performance computing system at the right time.” said Executive Director Chun Sae-won of Samsung Electronics’ Memory Business Department’s Marketing Team. “We are going to respond towards changes in global IT markets in advance by focusing on 3D memory technologies and secure new bases for growth continuously.”

Staff Reporter Han, Juyeop | powerusr@etnews.com (specializes in semiconductor)