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from the NAND-has-MLC-and-QLC-so-why-not-RAM? dept.
Micron Spills on GDDR6X: PAM4 Signaling For Higher Rates, Coming to NVIDIA's RTX 3090
It would seem that Micron this morning has accidentally spilled the beans on the future of graphics card memory technologies – and outed one of NVIDIA's next-generation RTX video cards in the process. In a technical brief that was posted to their website, dubbed "The Demand for Ultra-Bandwidth Solutions", Micron detailed their portfolio of high-bandwidth memory technologies and the market needs for them. Included in this brief was information on the previously-unannounced GDDR6X memory technology, as well as some information on what seems to be the first card to use it, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3090.
[...] At any rate, as this is a market overview rather than a technical deep dive, the details on GDDR6X are slim. The document links to another, still-unpublished document, "Doubling I/O Performance with PAM4: Micron Innovates GDDR6X to Accelerate Graphics Memory", that would presumably contain further details on GDDR6X. None the less, even this high-level overview gives us a basic idea of what Micron has in store for later this year.
The key innovation for GDDR6X appears to be that Micron is moving from using POD135 coding on the memory bus – a binary (two state) coding format – to four state coding in the form of Pulse-Amplitude Modulation 4 (PAM4). In short, Micron would be doubling the number of signal states in the GDDR6X memory bus, allowing it to transmit twice as much data per clock.
[...] According to Micron's brief, they're expecting to get GDDR6X to 21Gbps/pin, at least to start with. This is a far cry from doubling GDDR6's existing 16Gbps/pin rate, but it's also a data rate that would be grounded in the limitations of PAM4 and DRAM. PAM4 itself is easier to achieve than binary coding at the same total data rate, but having to accurately determine four states instead of two is conversely a harder task. So a smaller jump isn't too surprising.
The leaked Ampere-based RTX 3090 seems to be Nvidia's attempt to compete with AMD's upcoming RDNA2 ("Big Navi") GPUs without lowering the price of the usual high-end "Titan" GPU (Titan RTX launched at $2,499). Here are some of the latest leaks for the RTX 30 "Ampere" GPU lineup.
Previously: GDDR5X Standard Finalized by JEDEC
SK Hynix to Begin Shipping GDDR6 Memory in Early 2018
Samsung Announces Mass Production of GDDR6 SDRAM
Related: PCIe 6.0 Announced for 2021: Doubles Bandwidth Yet Again (uses PAM4)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 16 2020, @11:54PM (12 children)
Define "ass-raped". If we may step back in time just a little bit, Japanese cars were built to much higher tolerances than US made cars. Japanese cars were built much cheaper than union made cars in America. The Japanese often took American technology, and improved on it, substantially. The 6 cylinder engine in Toyota Land Cruisers started life as Chevrolet engines, and the Japanese made them more powerful, more fuel efficient, and longer lasting. I really don't think that "ass-raped" is the proper term here.
Being a motorcycle guy, I can tell you that in the '80's you could buy a full dress street bike from Japan for about half the price of a barebones, stripped down American built motorcycle.
If the Koreans out-efficiencied the Japanese, well, so be it. That still isn't an "ass-rape".
What China has been doing for the past 40 years is more akin to an "ass-rape" of the US, than the development of computer technology has been.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2020, @12:08AM
Runaway: expert on guns, bikes and... ass-raping.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2020, @12:15AM
Wipe the floor, took them to the cleaner, clean the clock, etc. etc.
No argument that Japanese industry totally outperformed American (nevermind the pathetic European) industries. And the South Korean outfits pulled "the Japanese" on the Japanese.
As for the Chinese, that, too, I am in full agreement.
You know, Trump has banned TikTok in America? Chicom has been doing that shit as long as ... even today! You can't run a company in China without a Chinese partner owning the majority stake, the "partner" that must bootlick CCP.
Free Hong Kong!
Free Tibet!
Free Uighurs!
Fuck CCP!
Taiwan Numbah Won!
(Score: 3, Funny) by jasassin on Monday August 17 2020, @12:17AM (3 children)
To forcibly thrust your penis in and out of an unwilling victims asshole.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2020, @03:14PM (2 children)
Is it still ass-rape if the person was already dead when you found them?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 17 2020, @05:25PM (1 child)
Inability to give consent = rape. You're just including a Necrophilia aspect to it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 18 2020, @05:35AM
Just to be clear, that's bad right?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday August 17 2020, @12:31AM (2 children)
Toyota embraced W. Edwards Deming's quality control methods [typepad.com] after WWII when American manufacturers were making enough money to ignore the recommendations he brought them (first), being one of the only countries that hadn't been devastated.
Considering how US manufacturing rejected that kind of process improvement out of choice, I don't know what the corresponding term would be. It would have to work in "vision all the way to the end of next quarter", though.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2020, @12:40AM
After WWII, about the only standing, functioning, industrialized country was America. America had zero foreign competition.
So what happens? We have no foreigners to fight/compete against, so we fight among ourselves. Management vs Union.
Once others, basically the Japanese and Europeans, caught up, we were, like, it's the management fault, it's the union's fault, so on and so forth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2020, @09:18AM
That, exactly, so I'll add another +1 insightful to your post.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 17 2020, @12:35AM (2 children)
Stole tech know-how; IP. The only reason they've done so well is due to combination of 1) desperation after WW2, 2) W. Edwards Deming https://duckduckgo.com/?q=W.+Edwards+Deming&ia=web [duckduckgo.com], and 3) cultural values (which include taking pride in workmanship and quality).
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 18 2020, @01:37AM (1 child)
My understanding was that the pride in workmanship and quality was actually cultivated (though not instilled) and made implementably manifest by applying Shewhart/Deming's processes during the rebuilding effort. My understanding was that "Made in Japan" was actually a mark of poor quality prior to WWII/his arrival.
It's preposterous on its face that one person could transform an entire country in this way, but I can't find other direct references to what produced such trans-WWII changes in Japanese design, engineering, and manufacturing, especially after WWII, especially considering it was previously ruled by an Emperor.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 18 2020, @03:37AM
Japanese people / culture is very interesting. For one they have great unity / cohesiveness. My hunch is they were very ready for anything to help them after WW2.
Interesting how our egos (we all have) want to believe what we reason as being more true than reality.
My very clear memory of things "Made in Japan" is that they were cheap junk. So like 1950s-1970s. So it took a long time to significantly incorporate Shewhart/Deming's philosophies.