SK Hynix starts mass production for 16 GB HBM2E DRAM chips

Announced back in 2019 as a competitor for GDDR6, the HBM2E high-speed DRAM standard is now entering full-scale mass production at the SK Hynix facilities in South Korea. Due to its improved transfer speeds, HBM2E is expected to be integrated with the next gen AI systems focusing on deep learning and HPC solutions, which also include compute-oriented GPUs from Nvidia and AMD. We might even see this new type of memory integrated in high-end gaming GPUs.

Compared to GDDR6 that offers a theoretical bandwidth of 72 GB/s, the HBM2E standard is offering 460 GB/s with 1,024 input/output operations per second. Memory density is also improved, allowing for 16 GB capacities per memory chip (more than double from previous HBM2) thanks to the use of the Through Silicon Via technology, which reduces power consumption by 50% and decreases package size by 30%, as well.

HBM2E is specifically designed for heavy compute loads and will be an excellent addition for Exascale supercomputers that help research climate change patterns, bio-engineering methods and space exploration endeavors. The inclusion in gaming GPUs could also offer a significant performance jump for the next gen enthusiast-grade Ampere and RDNA2 models.