During its Q3 2023 earnings report, Micron presented its brand new DRAM roadmap which unveils next-gen HBM3 products, GDDR7 & denser DDR5 dies.

Micron Roadmap Unveils HBM3 Gen2, HBMNext, GDDR7 & Up To 32 Gb DDR5 DRAM Technologies

Micron kicked off its earnings call with the unveiling of the industry's fastest and highest-capacity HBM DRAM to date. This new HBM solution is referred to as HBM3 Gen2 and will be utilizing a 1β process node to deliver faster speeds and denser capacities. So let's get on with the technical and detailed breakdown.

The Micron HBM3 Gen2 seems to be an intermediate solution that will serve as the transition to the next-gen HBM standard which still seems to be a couple of years away. As such, Micron will be boosting the existing HBM3 standard to its maximum potential. The first iteration of HBM3 Gen2 is going to feature an 8-Hi design, offering up to 24 GB capacities and bandwidth exceeding 1.2 TB/s with up to 2.5x the performance per watt of the prior generation. The DRAM will operate at speeds of 9.2 Gb/s which is a 50% boost over the existing standard which runs around 4.6 Gb/s speeds. It's expected to launch in 2024.

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At the same time, Micron will also begin sampling its 2nd iteration of the HBM3 Gen2 DRAM that will be launching in 2025. This HBM3 Gen2 DRAM will offer a 12-Hi design with up to 36 GB DRAM capacities and once again, speeds that exceed 1.2 TB/s of bandwidth. Both HBM3 Gen2 solutions will be targeted at the AI and Generative space which has taken the industry by storm.

But there's more, the company also listed its HBMNext DRAM solution which might be referring to HBM4. This solution will feature capacities ranging from 36 GB to 64 GB and bandwidth between 1.5 to 2+ TB/s. Competitor of Micron, SK Hynix, is also prepping to launch its next-gen HBM4 DRAM solution by 2026, the same time as Micron's HBMNext solution.

HBM Memory Specifications Comparison

In addition to HBM3 Gen2 and HBMNext solutions, Micron also disclosed its GDDR7 plans which is a hot topic. The company has already confirmed to launch the next-gen consumer DRAM solution by the first half of 2024 and is in the race with Samsung which also announced 32 Gbps speeds for its solutions.

Interestingly, Micron will offer its GDDR7 GPU DRAM in both 16 Gb and 24 Gb DRAM dies which is great news for higher VRAM capacities. This would allow for more capacities per GPU tier when we compare with GDDR6X which was limited to just 16 Gb dies. The GDDR7 memory will also operate at faster 32 Gbps speeds, offering up to 128 GB/s of bandwidth per module. For example, the RTX 4060 configured with a 24 Gb GDDR7 configuration will offer 12 GB VRAM capacities and up to 512 GB/s of bandwidth. Following is what we can expect from various bus configurations:

128-bit @ 32 Gbps: 512 GB/s / 12 GB VRAM192-bit @ 32 Gbps: 768 GB/s / 18 GB VRAM256-bit @ 32 Gbps: 1024 GB/s / 24 GB VRAM320-bit @ 32 Gbps: 1280 GB/s / 30 GB VRAM384-bit @ 32 Gbps: 1536 GB/s / 36 GB VRAM

There's a lot to be squeezed out of the GDDR6 generation yet since Samsung is already working on itsGDDR6W designandGDDR7 solutionssimultaneously which should double the capacity and performance while Micron is expected to push GDDR6X to even higher speeds in the coming future. The company has beenmass-producing 24 Gbps dies but they are yet to be utilized by any consumer-grade GPU. We can expect the first consumer-grade solutions based on GDDR7 DRAM around late 2024 or early 2025.

At the risk of reading too much into the crystal ball here, one of the interesting tidbits to come out Micron's latest memory roadmap is that there's no GDDR7X on it. This roadmap implies Micron will only be producing regular GDDR7, with no special 'X' variant for NVIDIA pic.twitter.com/owa0tvdEWv

— Ryan Smith (@RyanSmithAT) July 26, 2023

Anandtech's Ryan Smith also points out that there's no specialized "X" variant announced for GDDR7 yet. Micron had GDDR5X and GDDR6X which was exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs but if the company doesn't make a GDDR7X variant for NVIDIA, it would be the first time in many years. There could be one down the road though since GDDR6X was only unveiled with Ampere while Turing GPUs only featured GDDR6 support and the newer standard wasn't unveiled by then.

GDDR GPU DRAM Progression:

And lastly, Micron has also disclosed its 32 Gb DDR5 DRAM ICs which also utilize the 1β process node and will be deployed in the first half of 2024 with capacities reaching 128 GB per module & 1TB per DIMM. These will be targeted at servers first but we can expect some form to land in the consumer segment as we have seen with the 24 Gb DRAM dies which offer up to 48 GB capacities per DIMM.